


Keep Reaching Out, I'll Keep Coming Back

by badgerpride89



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, and they accept that, he just confuses them on a mass scale, heaven doing its best, it's messy and complicated, they try guys, they want their baby brother happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-05-18 14:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19336276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badgerpride89/pseuds/badgerpride89
Summary: Written for the Dreamwidth Prompt: Aziraphale Tells Heaven About Crowley and they don't reject him.The Heavenly Host learns that their little brother has been cavorting with a demon, not performing his duties as he should, and lying about it. It's the lying that hurts most.Somewhere along the way, trust broke down between Aziraphale and them. They'll be damned if it stays that way. But trust is a complicated thing. Earning it back is never easy on either side.





	1. Would you believe me now?

"Wait, hold on, seriously? You're serious?" Gabriel asks, mouth slightly agape. It's fifty years to the apocalypse and he and his siblings should (key word there, Aziraphale) be plotting strategy and readying their forces for the final battle. Instead, his little brother (never mind that Aziraphale could, if he wants, tear a hole through Heaven's armies, he has always been the odd little duck in their flock) shows up to file a request for holy water, and confesses. A lot. Almost six thousand years worth of lies, collusion, indulgences, and otherwise non-angelic behavior. It's the lies that sting the most. He loves his little brother and they trusted him with the Earth, trusted him to look after things, train new agents to blend in, and all this time he was lying and cavorting with the enemy? Gabriel's pretty sure his corporation would have had a heart attack by now if he had one.

"Yes, I am," Aziraphale says quietly. "I am sorry about...all of this. I just...I realize I should have done better."

"Do you?" Michael snaps reflexively. Michael's lip is quivering; she's probably flashing back to Lucifer's confession before his fall. Gabriel would be, too, if he had any remaining positive feelings towards the being who broke his counterpart in two.

Gabriel places a hand in front of Michael, steadying them. Uriel shakes her head - the Watchman of the Heavenly hosts and she had no idea what their little brother was doing. Sandalphon trades looks with Gabriel, a whole conversation passing between them. Should they be glad he confessed? Angry at what he did? Sad? Mostly they're completely flummoxed. Aziraphale is certainly living up to his official Purpose of Keeper of Secrets and Mysteries.

"Let me make sure I have this straight," Gabriel says for all of them. "You have not only been befriending but actively working with an enemy agent for centuries now to circumvent your sworn duty and now you want us to bless some holy water so that said enemy agent can kill his own people if they punish him for doing exactly what you are doing? And that is literally the only reason you're confessing?"

"Not the only reason," Aziraphale asserts. However, he's nodding and doesn't seem to realize it.

They wait a moment for more but as usual, Aziraphale clams up. He'd say damn it but Gabriel really, really doesn't want to lose another angel to Hell and even thinking it, with Aziraphale this close to the line, is inviting trouble.

"You did this out of...love?" Sandalphon asks slowly, like he still can't believe they're having this conversation.

"Not initially, no," Aziraphale replies, hunching over. "It was...difficult, watching humans suffer for all those years. I suppose after a while I wanted to simply...not feel conflicted any more, about the great calamities and horrors they endure or subject one another to. They were so great and I...was so small, hardly able to make a real difference."

Gabriel's heart aches, like physically aches, at the layers in his little brother's tone. He really wasn't Created for management.

"Then why didn't you just tell us?" Uriel asks, no pleads. "We would have helped you, comforted you during hard times, given you respite."

Aziraphale blinks like this is brand new information. Gabriel resists the urge to rub his eyebrows. All these centuries and all this lying and Aziraphale still hasn't changed much. He'd be relieved except Aziraphale's obliviousness has apparently warped into some certainty they don't care and never have. Michael links her thumb with Gabriel's, anchoring him this time. Patience, he reminds himself.

"Oh," Aziraphale sighs quietly. "I thought..." he trails off.

"Aziraphale," Gabriel says, as gently as he can. It's not gentle enough, if Aziraphale's quaking is anything to go by. "You are one of us. Moreover, you volunteered for the Gate and Earth assignment, you weren't Created for it. Nobody expected you to have a full handle on it 100% of the time or a perfect record, just that you do your best."

He remembers that moment. After the Fall and that utter mess left behind, how they all scrambled to fill the void created by half their numbers up and quitting. How he came to this fucking assignment when all he'd Made for was the Almighty's proclamations. How Aziraphale, so young, among the last Created before the Fall, so bright, had practically begged for the Earth assignment. Gabriel had heaved a sigh of relief, one less thing to worry about, and chalked his eagerness up to Aziraphale's love of knowledge and learning. It would be a good fit, Gabriel had thought then. The never-ending mysteries of humanity would sustain his little brother and bring him joy through the challenges of humanity's worst impulses and the inevitable demonic victories. Evidently he was wrong. Or right; Aziraphale had turned to a grand mystery in times of strife, after all, he thinks a little hysterically.

He's said something wrong. As difficult as Aziraphale is to read (and when did he become so difficult? That Gabriel can't spot it just chips away at him), even Gabriel can tell. Aziraphale fidgets with his hands and ring but doesn't look like he's going to say anything.

"Speak, Aziraphale," Sandalphon commands with the force of the Almighty's wrath before pulling back, "Not talking is how we all ended up here."

Not you, we. Us. All of us, including you. Because you are one of us. Michael's thumb twitches.

Aziraphale falters and takes a moment to gather himself. "I don't understand. I thought, when no one came down after everything in the garden, that you knew what happened, what I allowed and did. I thought that I had done all the wrong things and that I was not to be forgiven for it."

They gape at each other. This...this is worse than they thought. "Aziraphale, for once in your existence, just listen and hear what I have to say rather than what you think I am saying," Gabriel says, clapping his hands together for emphasis. "Nobody blames you for what happened in the garden. You weren't Created for the job, you did what you thought was right, given that you weren't Created to guard a damn tree or distribute swords! You didn't know! You couldn't have known! Nobody could forgive you for what happened because there is nothing to forgive! And there never has been. Well, until now."

Aziraphale shifts his gaze to the floor, exhales quietly. Gabriel breathes deeply.

"You," he points to Aziraphale, "don't leave. You," he points to Sandalphon, "keep him here. We'll be back."

He turns on his heel and walks away, Uriel behind him, Michael beside him.

"Would you like a hand preening? It looks like you've been neglecting yourself," Sandalphon's voice echoes behind them. Aziraphale's response is lost to distance and acoustics.

They stop about halfway to Michael's office in a quiet, out of the way corridor. Michael sighs, doubt etched painfully on their face. Uriel's celestial markings glow an angry shade of gold but she's otherwise composed. Far more so than Gabriel feels.

"Permission to search the Earth visual and audio records," Michael asks. It's barely a question.

"Purpose?" Uriel intones to make the search official.

"To trace the routes and contacts of the Principality Aziraphale in order to determine whether he has betrayed Heavenly secrets in addition to the charges he confessed to."

They might as well have punched Gabriel, it would hurt less. "He wouldn't," he hisses heatedly. "He's one of us, he wouldn't do that."

Michael stares him down as Uriel watches with pity in her eyes. "You mean like he wouldn't lie about a sword, like he wouldn't engage in temptations as a favor to a demon? I refuse to put my soldiers and all other angels in jeopardy based on the assumption of what Aziraphale would and would not do."

Gabriel winces. Troop movements, agent placements, Aziraphale certainly knows enough to do damage. Even without all of that, he is the Angel of Mysteries, Keeper of Secrets. Gabriel shudders to think of what all of his Knowledge could do, maybe has done, in the wrong hands.

There's a reason bearing false witness is one of the big ten. Humans often seem to think that confession and atonement is enough to make up for the damage a sin causes. The problem is that without trust, without establishing the complete, honest account of a situation, there can be no penance and no forgiveness. The lying is worse than the doing in Gabriel's opinion.

"He may be telling the truth there," Uriel says gently. "An investigation will determine that one way or another."

"Go. Permission granted. Uriel, assist them, would you? The sooner we get this mess straightened out the less chance of it all blowing up in our faces."

Michael nods as Uriel makes a beeline towards the control stations. "And where are you off to?" Michael asks.

"The Archives," Gabriel bites.

Michael's eyes wide as she places a hand on Gabriel's arm. "Do be careful."

The Archives, capital A, sit on the ethereal plane exactly halfway between Heaven and Hell. There is no elevator or escalator, no room in the stairwell to fully stretch their wings and fly down. And it's cold. The closer to the Archives proper, the colder it becomes until the temperature reaches near absolute zero. For a human, it's a death sentence. For an angel, it's like walking into subzero temperatures in wet swim trunks. Shivering, mind slowing, reflexes shot, all supernatural energy devoted to avoiding frostbite. Thus is the peace maintained in the one space angels and demons must share.

Gabriel stalks down the winding stairs, around and around, left only with the cold and the whirl of his own troubled thoughts. He tries to picture himself in Aziraphale’s situation, basically alone (he could have asked!) surrounded by puny mortals whose lives are horrendously short and fragile and one demon who’s stuck there with you. He can’t. Even when he pictures Beelzebub and himself out there, the two of them, it doesn’t work. He can’t see himself doing almost anything Aziraphale has done. When he finally hits the landing, he buzzes the intercom.

“Gabriel in for records,” he says.

He raises his celestial core as the door swings open and he walks in, shivers increasing. The Archives are so large they’re beyond even angelic perception; it’s like seeing a mirror reflected in another mirror ad infinitum. Two large desks sit in front of the neverending assortment of filing cabinets, safes, shelves, baskets, some weird box thingy with wheels, on and on. The demon’s stone desk is empty but the red oak desk isn’t. It is occupied by an angel. The Chief Archivist of Heaven. She has dark hair and darker skin and the attitude of a century-old human crone. There’s a reason no one likes coming down to the Archives.

Zaphkiel is on fire. Literally ablaze, so hot and bright she should be scorching the document she’s signing. Well, that’s one way to stay warm

“I had wondered when you would darken my door again,” she says, her voice low and slow in the cold.

“Zaph, how’s it going?” he asks with false cheer and leans on the desk.

“I did warn you,” she continues like he hasn’t spoken, her eyes on a new piece of parchment.

“You’re still mad about that?”

“I would rather be right here at the moment than up there.”

Right. Forgot about that. He waits a moment longer and she finally looks up at him, disdain in her white eyes. “He was my best archivist and you let him go to Earth. Be good for him, you said, made to unravel things, you said. Meanwhile, my filing system has never recovered. Do you have any idea what it takes to run this place?”

Gabriel knows he’s not supposed to answer that question. She’s never forgotten (he would say never forgiven but they’re angels, they have to forgive at some point) that he sanctioned Aziraphale’s assignment when he could have taken a secondary assignment within the Archives instead.

“Look, do you have the Knowledge Aziraphale sent back and his miracle reports? Stupid question, of course you do. Could you bring them to me?”

“I do and I could,” she finally replies. Gabriel doesn’t trust the bureaucratic smile slashing her face. Note to self: give Archive angels more time away from their demonic counterparts. “But that isn’t all you need.”

“What else could I need?” he asks, heart thudding in dread over what she knows that he doesn’t.

She looks pointedly at the document in front of her. Gabriel can see it’s some kind of tag and identification pair. Just as he’s about to voice his confusion, a small, highly ornate gold key appears next to him.

“The personnel vault and file,” she says as she stands and, quick as a wink, vanishes into the Archives.

Gabriel’s stomach drops. No, no, no. “He’s still one of us,” he shouts, his voice swallowed by the size of the Archives.

“He is,” comes the response, faster than he expects. That means-

He slowly snatches the key and pushes a small bit of power into it. It bites his numb hand in response but yields. With a flash of light, he appears in the deepest, darkest part of the Archives. The old personnel files. He shivers and not from the cold. Even by their standards, the place is ancient, silent as the grave, darker than a galaxy without stars. All that remains of their brethren before they fell. It’s a time capsule, a memorial, meticulously organized with quiet, unassuming prowess. No wonder Zaphkiel railed against losing Aziraphale.

The one he is looking for is a small, unassuming niche in the large columbarium, the size of a large urn. He puts the key into the lock and turns. That small movement feels like a desecration. Not a whisper, not a speck of dust disturbs the peace as he opens the door. Inside, bathed in the light of stardust, is a manila file, each sheaf of parchment inside compressed into a single layer of atoms. It’s as thick as his arm. He reaches out, grabs it, and is whisked back to the front desk.

He tucks the file under his arm as Zaphkiel stacks box after box precariously atop one another. There are quite a lot of them. He hears a high pitched schwing from some, like pebbles tumbling over one another, others sound like rainmakers when they’re moved.

“Um…”

“Do be careful with them. They are due back the week before Armageddon.”

"Right. Got it."

"And do send Aziraphale down. I would like to see him again."

"Will do," Gabriel says as he tries to focus on warping his essence into a form which can accommodate all the boxes. It is frustratingly slow and difficult. His mind is too preoccupied and his power too focused on staying warm. He finally manages it after several minutes of swearing and Zaphkiel laughing at him.

"Thank you for the records," he says and rudely leaves before she can respond.

The trek back up is just as little fun as the trip down, save this time he gets to warm up as he goes. He makes it back to his floor and deposits the boxes and file into his office, which he miracles larger to accommodate the mess. The brown boxes contain marble sized globes, each miracle logged along with its circumstance and immediate outcome. The blue boxes, on the other hand, are full of rice sized kernels, six thousand years worth of knowledge and secrets important enough for Aziraphale to tag for storage. The blue boxes outnumber the brown almost three to one. Never has Gabriel been so glad for a lack of pain receptors. He imagines he would have the mother of all headaches right now.

But that inspection can wait until his siblings return. What can't is the personnel file. Well, it could, maybe should, but curiosity is an emotional state he has little experience with and even less resisting. He flips open the folder and peers into the deepest layer for the ID tag. This is it. He knows it. This will answer so many of their questions - how a demon could so thoroughly get under Aziraphale's skin, how Aziraphale could learn to fear them (and doesn't that sting), why God Herself allowed an angel his first lie and let him keep telling it, why this demon was worth risking condemnation, damnation, and death. All he wants is clarity and this file has to provide it. It has to.

At the deepest layer, Aziraphale's flowing celestial script reads 'Jophiel, Angel of Divine Wisdom and Understanding.' Down the page, in a more recent script and a different, cramped hand, is 'Cross reference: Crawley -> Crowley -> Anthony J. Crowley'.

He remembers Jophiel. Always changing forms, always asking why to anybody who would even pretend to listen. Always seeking, never satisfied. He recalls the other angel's excitement, no, passion when new things were created. New forms to try, new stars and nebulae set ablaze, new life. New thoughts, new ideas, new, new, new. He loved it all, loved bringing the host closer and closer to the Almighty. It was kind of irritating sometimes, but that was his Purpose so you know, who cares how it made any of them feel? 

"Fuck this shit," he seethes and slams the file closed. Wisdom and Understanding paired with Secrets and Mysteries. No fucking wonder. 

If Gabriel had ever doubted there was an Ineffable Plan, the proof of its existence is sitting right in front of him.

Jophiel should have been the Angel in the garden.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I've seen the Tumblr post, no, Crowley will never be Raphael to me. I prefer the idea of Ineffability, that one way or another, Crowley was always going to be in the garden, granting Knowledge to humanity. Jophiel is ascribed as the angel in the garden with the flaming sword. They are also the Angel of Understanding/Wisdom and are said to have taught some important Biblical figures. Aziraphale's primary Purpose comes from the angel Raziel, Keeper of Secrets and Mysteries in some later traditions, who is said to have granted Adam and Eve the Word so that they might understand the Lord and return to the garden. God is actually okay with this.


	2. Can you feel me now, that I'm vulnerable in oh so many ways?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is your friendly neighborhood reminder that angelic POVs are not necessarily right, wrong, or even objective, their POVs are limited.

Sandalphon’s office, despite sitting deep in the honeycomb of Heavenly offices, is lit by the light of millions of galaxies. It is brilliant and soothing at the same time, quiet yet full of activity. He likes this little space. Surrounded by his brethren, close enough to keep an eye on each and be checked on in turn, yet hidden from direct prying. They always know when something is wrong, of course. They also know that when the galaxies erupt, Sandalphon needs little beyond the thoughts and well-wishes they send his way.

All the millions of galaxies burn as he sits beside his erstwhile brother, picking feather lice from his wings. He’s been fretfully fidgeting, ducking his head and muttering quietly to himself since Gabriel and the others left them. It makes the preening process that much more difficult.

“You are supposed to relax,” he points out.

Aziraphale just glares at him before he schools his expression back to neutral. Sandalphon tugs a little hard at one of the feathers. Aziraphale winces slightly.

“Relax,” Sandalphon tries to speak like Gabriel, gentle like, but he’s not built for it. It’s more command than request. How does one offer comfort? “They aren’t going to smite you. You’ve managed to stay with us, in spite of all your doings. If She hasn’t let it happen, they won’t either.”

“Oh, thank you, that’s a real comfort.”

Aziraphale’s tone doesn’t match his earlier earnestness. By process of elimination, his words must be sarcastic. Sandalphon squishes a particularly large louse egg he’s found instead of answering. It’s not matter, not in the same way that matter is on the material plane, it’s more like a bad wish or a stray sin. Sandalphon enjoys destruction, no matter how small.

“You are one of us,” he says as Aziraphale makes a face at his delight, “but I do not understand you.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Sandalphon nods. “We have an accord, then.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Sandalphon goes back to Aziraphale’s feathers. They really are quite soft. “I do not understand you and you do not understand me. We agree that we do not understand each other. I like that. It is a good foundation.”

“Oh. I suppose so,” Aziraphale says quietly.

Sandalphon hooks a particularly stubborn feather back into formation. "I won't pretend to understand you. I wasn't made to do either of those things. But I can listen and try to find a common framework so that we can speak and know each other's meaning."

It’s what Gabriel says at their cooperation exercises. Plainly stated thoughts are the backbone to smooth operations when your team has little imagination for tasks beyond their own. Angel of Communication that he is, Sandalphon takes his word on these things.

"That is...surprisingly kind of you."

"Why surprise?"

"Because you are the Angel of Retribution. Kindness seems to be unnecessary for your line of work."

Sandalphon thinks for a moment. "I am proud of all my works," he finally declares. "There is kindness to be found in them. Sometimes destruction is the only relief. Kindness can grow in its place."

"And that would be fine," Aziraphale says and it is his turn to attempt gentleness, though he admittedly seems better at it. Caring for his demon perhaps? Did demons even understand gentleness? "Save your destruction hits rather more than a few innocent people."

“And?”

“And? Well, they didn’t deserve the smiting nor the fallout. It’s not really fair, is it?”

“Of course it isn’t,” he replies with a click of his tongue as he finally smooths down the feather. “Humans gave up fairness when they took the apple and took charge of their own decisions.”

“One human took the apple, not all of them.”

“Two.”

“The point still stands,” Aziraphale says heatedly. There’s something of fire and fury in his voice, buried beneath his prim tone. Sandalphon approves.

“As does mine.”

“Oh, for- you are not seeing it from their perspective. What if the Almighty destroyed this place and swept away half the host as punishment for what I’ve done?”

Sandalphon shakes his head. “She would not.”

“Hypothetically, Sandalphon. I am asking you how you would react if it happened.”

Sandalphon has little imagination. He says as much. Aziraphale sighs in frustration. Silence falls for a moment as Sandalphon switches to the left wing. His little brother is still tense but his wings have lowered a few inches. It is something. The trumpet shaped galaxy winks out.

"That will be Gabriel. Come." Sandalphon steps back, surveys his work. At least Aziraphale looks less scruffy.

Aziraphale blinks and stands. "Right then."

Something in his posture finally clicks for Sandalphon.

"You are afraid."

“Yes,” Aziraphale says. There is no point denying it.

"You have been for a long time."

"Yes." The weight of centuries strangles the syllable.

Fear Sandalphon understands. Well, the effects if not the feeling itself. It is quite damaging.

"Of what? Of us? Of your demon?" He carefully watches Aziraphale's reaction to each suggestion. No, he does not fear the demon, he fears _for_ him. Yes, he does fear the host. But there is more behind it all that escapes Sandalphon. Aziraphale says nothing, as usual.

He opens the door for the younger angel then takes the lead as they walk towards Gabriel's office. The rest of the host quietly buzzes in the back of his mind, easy to ignore or acknowledge at his whim. Word is spreading, it seems. There's no hostility, not yet. Disapproval and confusion dominate the host instead. There is also sympathy threaded throughout, particularly from the other Earth-bound agents. Aziraphale seems to be taking it all as condemnation. Then again, he has been ignoring and deceiving the host from Earth for many centuries, perhaps he needs practice connecting with them again?

Some check on the situation directly; four Archangels shuffle about for updates. He directs them to Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel rather than let them look through his perspective of the situation. He thinks Aziraphale would appreciate it. One in particular does the ethereal equivalent of tapping Sandalphon on the shoulder and whispering in his ear.

Oh. He raises an eyebrow and glances back at Aziraphale, who’s doing his level best to walk head held high and back ramrod straight. It’s the twitch of his eyebrows that gives away his unease.

“You fear yourself for loving him.”

At least, he thinks it’s fear. It’s similar enough.

Aziraphale stops dead in his tracks and looks at him like he did in Gomorrah.

“I beg your pardon-”

Exasperated fondness and a sad, knowing smile fire through the host like small sparks which will inevitably wind towards a hidden cache of dynamite and the main event. Sandalphon thinks Aziraphale misses it in his shock.

“We’re here,” Sandalphon interrupts Aziraphale’s building denials and opens the newly materialized door in front of them.

He stands outside the office, waiting for Aziraphale to enter. Gabriel stands near the grand window, a satellite passes slowly outside. Michael looks composed but their jacket is missing. Sandalphon has been on enough missions with them to know what that means. Uriel’s gaze slides right over him and onto Aziraphale.

Aziraphale himself marches into the office. His eyes are wide and his lips pursed, all defense, even Sandalphon can tell. He finds the faint barred spiral galaxy in his mental map and concentrates. Words are harder to project than impressions, feelings, or pictures.

_Be not afraid._

Like the humans all those centuries ago, the phrase shocks Aziraphale out of his fearful spiral.

Sandalphon is made for destruction.  
  
“Who is Jophiel?” Gabriel asks Aziraphale, his eyes on the hunk of metal outside the window.

Aziraphale blinks at the question, obviously thrown for a loop.

"I never met him before the Fall," Aziraphale says, "I finished his vault and the others before I was assigned to Earth."

That is not an answer to the question.

"And?" Gabriel prods. "Anything else you want to share?"

Sandalphon catches a glimpse of the personnel file on the desk just behind Michael as he closes the door. He figures out the question.

"I didn't know," Aziraphale says quietly. "Not for sure, not until about one thousand years into the mission. But, yes, I did put it together."

That...should be impossible, even for the Angel of Mysteries.

"What did you do with this information?" Uriel asks.

"Nothing, what would I do with it? I kept it to myself. It's not like it matters, he doesn’t care who he was in Heaven, demons don't remember much before the Fall, and we can't recognize them as they were anyway."

They all know demons can't remember their time in Heaven, much as they all know that angels cannot recognize their old comrades. Even knowing the two relevant identities, Sandalphon cannot hold them as one. For Aziraphale to have figured it out independently... Sandalphon loses the thread. There is a reason why that information is stored in the Archives. That said, maybe because it is the first time someone is actually pointing it out or maybe because it is Aziraphale, who spends so much time thinking about so much, pointing it out but this time Sandalphon considers the thought. Demons have a mere six thousand years of memories and knowledge. He finds it sad.

Gabriel releases a deep breath and faces the room. He plasters on his training smile, the one that is too bright and wide to be real.

"See, I would have loved to take you at word, Aziraphale, but you understand why I can't right now, right," he says then, at Aziraphale's flinch, adds, "But thank you for your honesty. Zaphkiel says hello."

"How is she?"

"Well. She wants you to come down once in a while."

"We verified through the Earth files that you did not betray Heavenly secrets to the enemy, intentionally or otherwise. That is good," Michael coolly steers the conversation back to its original topic. Had he, they wouldn't be having this conversation.

"So," Gabriel says with a clap and flourish, "That brings your potential charges down to aiding and abetting the enemy via temptations and other assistance, falsifying reports, waste, fraud, and abuse of celestial power, dereliction of duty, lying to your superiors directly and through omission, conspiracy to commit premeditated murder- we do not condone the complete annihilation of any lifeforms here, Aziraphale, destroying them on the battlefield is another matter entirely- have I missed anything?"

"The sins of pride, sloth, and envy," Uriel adds helpfully.

"Anything relevant, Uriel," he corrects himself. "The judgment of sins is Her domain, not ours."

He waits a beat.

"Shame," Sandalphon adds, finally identifying the flavor of fear Aziraphale has been projecting.

Gabriel's eyes widen like he's proud of Sandalphon's deduction.

"Shame," Gabriel adds to the list, "Consciousness of guilt indicates you are fully aware of what you were doing and yet kept doing it anyway. It's quite a list."

"Extensive," Uriel adds.

"Now wait just a moment," Aziraphale interjects. "One cannot use the emotional state of an ethereal agent against them. To do so is to render judgement on what is and is not a sin of thought which is beyond your purview."

Sandalphon nearly snorts at the cheek but stops himself. Aziraphale's righteous outrage surely is a sight.

Gabriel blinks, mouth slightly agape, as Michael takes the thread. "On that matter, you are correct. However do not forget that we can use your actions to establish a particular core or pattern which can factor into the disciplinary process."

Aziraphale blanches at that simple statement of fact. Sandalphon thinks Michael is being rather kind, reminding him of Heaven's protocol rather than assume he remembers or take advantage of his apparent ignorance.

"Now, as per protocol, I have pulled your records. We will be auditing every single miracle and report you've made since the garden. Everyone will get a look at them at the same time. You have the right to have your union rep, of course-"

"Union rep?"

"Yeah, union rep," Gabriel repeats himself, "we just started implementing it about twenty-five years ago, blah, blah, blah fairness and one angel against the host shtick. We sent a memo."

"Twenty-five years ago," Aziraphale states flatly.

"Yeah, twenty-five years ago," Gabriel confirms.

"Twenty-five years ago I was rather preoccupied with not being blown up during the Second World War," he says harshly. There is that fire and fury again. “Most of the Earth was, in fact.”

Sandalphon remembers that, rightly enough. The host, too. Few events on Earth carry enough magnitude to capture Heaven’s attention like that. One of the host grumbles along the line then tugs at Gabriel’s essence. Gabriel nods, then snaps his fingers. An enormous stack of papers appears in his hands.

“Well, here you go, feel free to peruse tonight,” he says as he shovels them into Aziraphale’s hands, then continues with his speech-making, “You’ll meet with your rep tomorrow night then we’ll begin the audit process. Dusk to sunrise, London time, every night until we get this sorted out. In the meantime, you may return to Earth and continue your mission there under supervision, from dawn until dusk.”

“I volunteer to supervise him,” Uriel interjects. Aziraphale makes a face.

Gabriel nods. “That’ll work.”

Sandalphon doesn’t see why. The disciplinary panel needs five members; the seven Archangels should easily have handled it but under the new regulations, Gabriel’s barred for being Aziraphale’s direct supervisor, Jegudiel has just volunteered to represent their brother, and now Uriel is placing herself right in the middle where she too will be unable to render judgement. That is four, not five. But Sandalphon is an angel, not a Principality and certainly not an Archangel so he remains quiet.

“Any other questions?”

Aziraphale draws himself up. “I assume that tomorrow night, the exact circumstances of the investigation will be negotiated, after I’ve spoken with my representative?”

“Got it in one,” Gabriel replies.

“Do note, however, that attempts to simply delay the process will be taken into account,” Michael adds, “Every objection and change request will need demonstrative evidence and well-reasoned arguments.”

Aziraphale nods. “I understand.”

“We’ll sort out the details tomorrow night. Now, if that’s done, we have another meeting to start. You’re dismissed. Uriel will find you when it’s time.”

“Right, then. It was lovely seeing all of you again,” Aziraphale says in that politely sarcastic tone again as he leaves the office.

Sandalphon trades looks with Gabriel who sighs wearily and gestures that he leave too. Sandalphon steps out of the office. He doesn’t have to go far to find their brother.

At the end of the hallway, Aziraphale stands at the Archive stairwell, the representation papers stacked in his arms and under his chin. Jegudiel stands beside him, shaking his hand and muttering something low. A few steps back, Raphael leans against the wall, a sad smile and a _look_ on their face at Jegudiel and Aziraphale’s quick conversation. Aziraphale visibly sags and opens the stairwell door, disappearing down into the Archives. The Archangels have a whole conversation in the second it takes the door to shut. Sandalphon feels them come to a decision. Their conviction more than their proximity cements its weight. They walk past Sandaphalon towards Gabriel’s office.

The Angel of Judgement and Angel of Healing are on the same side. Something is shifting in Heaven.

 


	3. Can you believe that I always had the best intentions?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Archangels talk. Uriel watches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly neighborhood reminder that angelic POVs are limited. And what they don't focus on is just as important as what they do.

Uriel watches Sandalphon leave, watches Gabriel sigh in frustration, watches Michael assess her, watches the other Archangels answer Gabriel's summon, watches Aziraphale at the stairwell.

"Mind explaining that," Gabriel requests, arms crossed in front of him.

Uriel steps out of parade rest, loosens her fists. Old habits are difficult to break, even after six millennia of practice. "I would rather not."

Michael raises an eyebrow at her. Uriel looks away. Michael was her superior, once, and though she knows she can do as she wishes, her Purpose would have her bend to her sibling's request. She is Michael's equal now. She owes them no such deference anymore.

Truthfully, she is furious. Equally true, she does not wish to voice her fury. How dare he do this to them? How dare he even contemplate it? How could he so shirk his duty that he thought his request for holy water wouldn't draw attention, that it was so reasonable? It boggles her mind, cuts her on a soul deep level. As far as she is concerned, he has betrayed them all, nothing more or less. Uriel knows her mind cannot be changed or softened on the matter of Aziraphale’s actions. Duty requires the disciplinary board have an open-mindedness she will never have towards him.

So she will remain quiet and keep watch instead.

"This was always going to be difficult," Michael says to fill the silence, "But we are four now."

"Perhaps fewer," Uriel replies, watching Jegudiel and Raphael's conversation with Aziraphale. Jegudiel acknowledges her, sends her a sense of solidarity and togetherness. They may be on opposite sides in this matter but they are each only doing their duty. Normally they get on quite well. Uriel will not let Aziraphale change that the way he is shifting...something. Everything feels unsettled, has done since Aziraphale opened his mouth and confessed. It unnerves her as much as Aziraphale himself. For the life of her, Uriel cannot tell where everything will land when the smoke and dust clear.

Gabriel groans at her pronouncement. "Oh, come on. I already have to bring in the Metatron, for heaven's sake. If Raphael makes me bring in anyone else, I swear I will-"

"Hey, simmer down, little bro," Jegudiel drawls as he and Raphael enter, "I supervised. Rafe here didn't even speak to him, let alone do something as disqualifying as file through his memory. Chill. Metatron's bad enough. No need to start turning on each other. Sweet sister Uriel, how are you? Not giving you a hard time, these two, right?"

Jedgudiel’s tight, dark corkscrew curls bounce with each twitch of his head. Of the Archangels, he most resembles her, his skin a few shades darker than hers.

Uriel smiles at him, in spite of herself. "I'm as well as I can be."

Jegudiel twines his fingers around her own, his silver and gold spider-web like markings shining between them. "You did the right thing," he whispers as Raphael conjures a chair and plants themself next to the near wall.

"I know," Uriel replies. She is the Angel of Duty before anything else. But his reassurance warms her, eases the knot in her chest.

He grins at her then turns to Gabriel. "So what's this about not receiving union memos, little brother?"

Gabriel scowls. "I'm looking into it," he bites out. "I'm as pissed off as you are about it, don't get all high and mighty on me, please."

He does take undelivered messages personally.

"Noted."

“Could someone get rid of that thing?” Barachiel says she materializes in the office, pointing at the personnel file. Her presence envelops the room, shielding and isolating the Archangels from the rest of the host. Uriel shivers. It’s necessary but she hates how quiet it becomes in her own mind, the absence of warmth and love and purpose. She has the other Archangels, of course, but it's like comparing an ocean to a bottle of water. Jegudiel tightens his grip around her fingers.

“It is private information,” Raphael agrees, balancing their chair on two legs and leaning against the wall.

It’s disturbing, is what it is. A stark, uncomfortable reminder of all they’ve lost, of those who chose to shirk their duty and fall for it. A terrible fate which could still await their little brother. Uriel can hardly stand to look at it.

“Leave it,” Michael orders as Gabriel raises a hand towards it.

He blinks in surprise, they all do to varying degrees. Michael may be the eldest but they don’t often blatantly exercise the power and authority that comes with it. They prefer suggestion to such displays.

Before any of them can ask anything, Selaphiel knocks and enters. Zir head’s ducked sheepishly as ze adjusts zir white sari.

“Thank you for your patience,” ze declares as ze finds zir way towards Gabriel, skirts swirling around zir like clouds. “It’s madness out there. And not just down on Earth.”

“We appreciate your prompt arrival,” Gabriel says, somewhere between sincere and sarcastic. As he rarely uses sarcasm outside the communications department, Uriel believes he means it sincerely. Selaphiel really has no sense of time.

“Now that we are all here, let us be-”

“One moment,” Selaphiel interrupts. “Please.”

Uriel trades looks with Jegudiel and Michael. Barachiel sends her sword into the ether, the gravity of the situation fully dawning. The Almighty hasn’t spoken to any of them since humanity’s Fall. They still feel Her presence, of course, they’re angels, after all. But Her silence does lead to some discomfort if Uriel thinks on that too long. However, no one objects; it is Selaphiel’s Purpose, after all.

Ze brings zir hands together and breathes deeply. “Oh, Lord, Creator of us all, we ask that You help us all with this endeavor. We love our brother and want to ensure everyone makes it through this whole and hale. We know You trust us to find the road you made. We trust ourselves and each other to do so with your love, even without your direct intervention. Please tell us if You have specific instructions. Thanks for listening. Much appreciated.”

A beat passes.

“Thank you, Selaphiel, that was...inspiring,” Gabriel says as he begins the meeting, miracling a schedule into each of their hands. Jegudiel shoves it into a pocket while Raphael takes the more aggressive act of ripping it in half over and over while Uriel watches.

“So, the demon first or whatever the heaven this whole thing with Aziraphale is? Because personally, I vote the demon, less chance of me disqualifying y’all and pulling the upper ranks into this,” Jegudiel says, stepping into the center of their makeshift circle.

“If you’d read the minutes-”

“What’s there to say about the demon?” Barachiel states, her thin lips tight and stance wide. “I say we put in for termination and drown him in holy water.”

“Now that's-”

“How can-”

“Are you kidding me-”

“Aziraphale loves him, you can’t do that!” Selaphiel yells over the rest.

Michael snaps their wings. The rest quiet. Uriel glances back and forth, at the cracks which are beginning to spread.

"The demon isn't the issue, Aziraphale is," Jegudiel directs at Barachiel.

"You really think he'd be acting like this without him?" She pushes back. "That is not the defense you think it is." She turns to Michael. "I am trying to protect us. Demons find and gnaw away at our weakest parts. If this one has found a weak link, better to end him before he has a chance to use it."

Raphael slams their chair to the ground as Jegudiel's wings flair. "You want him to fall? Because it really sounds like you do," they say.

Barachiel scoffs. "So we do nothing for fear of losing him? That sounds like extortion to me."

"By protocol, we're not allowed to meddle in management issues on the other side," Jegudiel snaps, "Dagon and Ligur would love a chance to sink their claws into our hierarchy."

"We have a duty-"

"Within regs," Jegudiel interrupts.

"We do not take actions which will result in the complete destruction of another life form," Uriel reminds them.

Barachiel scowls but Uriel has the right of it, not her, and the large Archangel knows it.

"Your word that Hell won't learn of this from anyone in Heaven. We won't stop them doing what they need to when the time comes, we won't get involved, period," Jegudiel demands, eyeing Michael, Gabriel, and Barachiel.

All is quiet for a moment.

"Aziraphale needs hope," Selaphiel says softly, "We can't take it from him like that."

Something about the phrase irritates Uriel. A demon, the hope of an angel?

But Gabriel and Barachiel solemnly stand down, appeased by her wording.

"Noninterference means no inferences, suggestions, or movements which they can use as a starting point, Michael," Raphael reminds them.

Michael tenses but lowers their head in agreement. Selaphiel breathes a sigh of relief while Jegudiel releases Uriel's fingers.

"Okay, then," Gabriel says, pretending the last several minutes hadn't occurred and that he hadn't lost control of the proceedings, "Annihilation of the demon Crowley ruled off limits, discorportion ruled only in the course of normal celestial business."

"Regulated business," Uriel adds, closing the loophole now that they have come to an agreement.

"So it is written, so it shall be," Gabriel confirms and the order takes shape, winding itself first through the seven of them then snaking through the rest of the host.

That complete, Uriel watches her siblings glance at each other and fidget. They know what is coming and are dreading it. 

Gabriel steps into the silence, the only one willing to begin the next conversation. There's a reason he was placed in management.

"As enlightening as the preceding conversation was, Aziraphale is our priority, getting through the audit and subsequent actions are our priority, preferably with time to spare before Armageddon. Uriel has already volunteered to watch him while he's on Earth for the foreseeable future. The Metatron has agreed to be the fifth arbiter in the investigation. Is there anything else I am missing?"

Raphael scoffs under their breath and shakes their head, their silver-white braid swishing behind them. Gabriel feeds them a look. All the Archangels feel their exchange. It is like Gabriel is knocking on a door and Raphael is slamming it on in his fingers. No one, outside of the humans and demons who don't know any better, mistakes Raphael's gentle demeanor as a lack of stomach to do what needs to be done. Any good healer knows that sometimes the job requires inflicting pain in order to end suffering. Still, seeing them turn that clinical calculation on their fellows very nearly frightens Uriel.

“A great many things,” Raphael finally snaps for the group’s benefit. Their gaze ensnares the entire assembly. They take a breath they don’t need before speaking. “Our little brother fears us. He doesn’t trust us. Anyone want to talk about that.” Their voice aches with failure and echoes through the office.

“Of course he is afraid,” Barachiel replies with a shrug. “He knows what he did-”

“Allegedly,” Jegudiel interrupts.

“He’s afraid of his just punishment,” Barachiel finishes over him, “As he should be.”

Raphael chuckles darkly. “You’re sure it’s that?”

If Uriel could sweat, a cold one would be running down her neck. Michael wears a mask of polite confusion, which means they are dreading the coming revelation. Gabriel looks ready to swallow his tongue. For a second, she wonders if he’ll summon his trumpet and break their isolation.

“Try to find him. Go ahead, Barachiel, drop part of the shield so we can see out into the host. Show me what you find.”

Polite as the suggestion is, Uriel winces at the implications. She feels Barachiel shift the shield and then focuses, both inward and out. Every angel conceptualizes the host and its countless connections differently. For her, it’s a series of paths. Streets, some culdesacs, perfect grids with more traffic lights than a large city, roundabouts, all connect disparate elements, individual angels, together. Her own path winds through perfect, pristine rivers, tame little mountain paths, and more as she flies from one sibling to another. Confusion besets her. Just thinking of Aziraphale should lead her directly to him, even when he’s physically located in the Archives. Puzzled, she taps into Gabriel, then Raphael for help. Telegraph wires overlay her paths, and she perceives rather than sees a circulatory system enveloping her. Gabriel sends signal after signal fruitlessly down the wires until Raphael stops him and nudges them to follow the oxygen rich blood cells towards cells starving for it. They follow.

Until.

The path is overgrown, brambles and thorns cluttered atop tree roots cracking through Roman concrete. There’s a decided air of ancient, crumbling ruins scattered among the dark, dense foliage. Gabriel’s addition is a frayed cable, thick as a tree trunk and partially exposed to the elements, its post splintered and barely upright. As for Raphael, it’s a plaque-lined artery, choking and depriving essential organs of vital nutrients.

She casts out. It’s the same across the board. Barachiel adds a partially dismantled section of the great wall, pale blue blocks scattered around it. Michael’s map is written in nearly invisible ink, faded and torn. Selaphiel’s song finds a score a full step flat and pi-pianissimo. Jegudiel’s precious decrees are little more than incomprehensible gibberish, only a word here or there makes sense.

Uriel comes back to her body shaken and weak at the level of neglect. Selaphiel is openly weeping into Gabriel, who is patting zir on the shoulder, Michael is scowling and ready to fight a round or fifty. Even Barachiel stares in horrid fascination, like she can’t quite wrap her mind around Raphael’s revelation. Jegudiel grabs Uriel's hand again. She squeezes back, tighter than ever.

“For the record,” Raphael says gently, full of finality, “Jegudiel had trouble when we were staring him in the face.”

And that’s what’s got half the host riled up, Uriel realizes hotly, putting two and two together. Their siblings have been trying to find him, to check in with him, only to discover their connections to him in near desolation. It’s all conscious thought, sent messages, and barely, coolly functional. None of the fluid exchange of emotions, thoughts, information, _presence_ which should bind them together remains. It’s a nerve which no longer responds, yes, but more. Earth, Hell, physical distance makes no difference to a metaphysical conduit. This is neglect, active, willful neglect. And it’s on all borders, theirs and Aziraphale’s. Forget a bottle of water, Aziraphale is damn near a drop separated from the ocean. And the worst, the _worst_ part is that no one realized it sooner. For all that they care, and they do - anger cannot be born from apathy - no one realized just how tenuous, how fractured his connections to them had become. Would probably not have realized, Uriel thinks with mounting horror, until the end of the Earth, if that.

They failed him, just as surely as he failed them.

“How did this happen?” She’s just as surprised by her own voice as the others are.

How did we _let_ this happen?

Gabriel breaks first. “Raphael, fix this, you’re the Angel of Healing, fix him,” he demands, each word punctuated for emphasis.

Raphael glares him down, speaks before Jegudiel can raise his own objection. “And what would you have me do? Bring the host to bear against him? Wipe him and start again, is that what you’re asking of me?!?”

Gabriel’s eyes widen, he considers his answer, and-

 **NO** , Michael commands. They’re trembling, frenzy and fury crackling in the air around them.

All remember the first, and only, time they were ordered to try to wipe an Archangel’s experiences from themself and the host. Heaven itself still grieves the loss.

Uriel walks to Michael and loops her arm around theirs. Michael links their hands then covers them with their free one, their grip tighter than a vise. Michael would do it again, if ordered, would break completely for it because above all, Michael leads by example. But they haven’t been ordered to this time. Won’t be, Uriel is certain, and she lets Michael cling to her certainty like fingers on a cliff.

For his part, Gabriel is at a loss for words. “I don’t, I didn’t mean-” he trails off then exhales deeply. “I didn’t mean _that_ ,” he apologizes to Michael.

It takes him a long minute to begin anew. “The connections, the- the separation, can’t you fix it?”

“Don’t you think I would’ve done that already if I could?” Raphael finally whispers into the gloom, “There’s nothing to fix. They’re...they’re just us and him. That’s it.”

A beat passes. Then two. Then three. This is beyond words.

“So,” Barachiel broaches, low and slow, “what do we do about this?”

“It’s not irreparable,” Uriel says slowly, surveying the damage with a closer eye. Yes, there are thorns and brambles and yes, the tree roots need taming but the path is still there. Thorns can be cleared, roots pruned, holes filled. It’s hard work, yes, but. It can be done. 

“But how?" Selaphiel asks.

"A common frame of reference," Michael says slowly, eyes stealing towards Raphael and Gabriel, "I've had agents who struggled to re-adapt after a mere century on Earth, even with a full connection. Earth...moves too quickly."

Raphael nods. They've been involved in more than one reintegration. "We can't support or update him, he's left adrift among humans. Priorities and timelines fall out of alignment and no one knows if or how to change it. He clings to what he can. It makes sense."

"So what are you saying? That he's gone native or something?" Gabriel asks, gaping.

"He's adapted to unprecedented circumstances," Michael corrects.

"We still don't know when or why he started to cut us off, either," Raphael adds. 

"So, how, exactly, do we reestablish a frame of reference after six thousand years worth of drift?" Gabriel asks, "And how do we do it in between his actual duties, which still need to get done, and, you know, the audit?"

"Simple, really," Jegudiel says, rolling his shoulders. "We need to reestablish trust, first. That's one reason we have audits in the first place. The rest is just getting to know him all over again. You know, what's changed, what hasn't, that sort of thing."

"I suppose we're lucky in a way that it's a full audit," Michael says, "given that we will shall see what he experienced and hear his own thoughts on the matter."

"So long as you lot aren't aggressive about it," Jegudiel points out. "Not exactly gonna be in a bonding mood with varying sentences hanging over him."

"It's a start," Uriel disagrees.

Her Purpose demands recompense to and redress from their wayward brother at the same time. It is highly disorienting. And infuriating in an entirely new way.

"Every bit of understanding matters," Michael says. "Understanding and condoning are not mutually exclusive. I believe we can catch two birds with one feeder: reconnect with Aziraphale and objectively determine his level of culpability in charges alleged against him."

"I suppose we have no choice but to try," Barachiel says after a long moment, speaking for them all.

* * *

She meets Aziraphale at the main lobby. He gives her a once over but voices no fault with her choice of clothing. She follows a half-step behind him, unfamiliar as she is with this area of London, her heels clacking with each hard step. Early and foggy though it is, they encounter several humans over the first few blocks. 

They cross the street in silence, Aziraphale’s bookshop just visible in the distance over the fog. The building itself radiates love and protection, a beacon calling her home, the one truly familiar presence in the ever-changing mortal world. The host buzzes in her mind, toppling over one another like so many waves upon the shore. She swats them back, taking a page from Sandalphon's idea of Aziraphale and his expectation of privacy. She watches Aziraphale walk, notes the tension and uncertainty coating his every move. Six thousand years and a broken connection with the host, Uriel wonders if she might be similar. And that's where it starts, she realizes. No grand gestures, no dramatic words. As Michael had said, just a little understanding.

He stops at the door, fumbles for a key he doesn’t need. She watches. Selaphiel's words echo in her skull.

“You should contact him,” she says, then clarifies, “Your demon. Barachiel is increasing security on the truly potent holy water stores. Not even humans will be able to steal anything.”

Aziraphale drops the key as he scrutinizes her, searching for what Uriel does not know. Doesn't know how he would even find it. She waits.

He exhales. “Thank you.” His voice is soft but reverberates between them.

Uriel steps up to the door. “I’m still furious with you,” she says, a little softer than she had intended.

“I understand,” Aziraphale replies.

She raises an eyebrow at him in disbelief. He ducks his head. Uriel opens the door without so much as a miracle.

Aziraphale blinks in confusion then turns to her. “I’m quite certain I locked up before I left.”


	4. And I'm finding out, there's just no other way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael may be the Angel of Mercy and Heaven's general but Aziraphale is the Keeper of Secrets and Mysteries for a reason. And that reason is about to become fully apparent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another reminder that angelic POVs are very limited. Also, Michael's pronouns are whatever they feel like in the moment. Hey, she was created before gender was a thing; let him have this.

Michael reads the old personnel file, holed up in their office and pinching their eyes. While most of the host is well into their daily activities, she cannot bring herself to start, not yet.

Gabriel loudly barges into her office, answering her summon.

“You rang?”

“You’ve read it,” she says flatly.

“Not much there,” Gabriel replies with a shrug. “Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. I was hoping it would provide some...clarity but it's only confused me more.”

Michael nods, takes a deep breath. Something itches in the back of their mind. It’s a difficult feeling to describe.

“No, I agree, it's just...”

“Hey, what’s wrong? I know I’m the pretty face around here but you can talk to me. This whole thing is...mind-blowing, and we can’t shut down now, not with all of this,” he finishes with a flourish.

That is the word they are looking for. They think. Michael’s never been good with them. Instead of replying verbally, she sends some of the maelstrom swirling under her skin towards this little brother. She hates it but he’s all she’s got right now- her twin, her equal lost to time, his own arrogance, and her sword. Really, this all hits too close to her heart. Unlike the others, she remembers, she knows them all. Always has. Seated at the left hand of the Almighty, they’d welcomed each and every one of their little siblings into Creation. Names, faces, designations, dominions, she remembers them all even after all these years. She can still see hints and pieces of those they lost. Some may say the host is like a honeycomb. If it is, Michael can still see the dead cells, the holes and what should exist in between. As far as the rest of the host is concerned, their siblings died. They mourned as such. To Michael, they’re ghosts, gone yet not, haunting her, taunting him with the possibility of renewal.

That’s why they have the back channels, not Gabriel (who speaks to Beelzebub on occasion but is not really trading information with zem), not Raphael, not even poor Uriel. Because Michael is the only one who can peer at the demons and still see bits and pieces of their siblings, their friends. Oh, it’s not what Aziraphale has apparently done, independently piecing together a single identity across multitudes, it’s more like a memory. When he hears Ligur’s voice, it carries the same resonance that Hofniel’s once did; when she sees Hastur and the light hits just right, she sees Phanuel’s mirth and fire. And of course, when she sees him, hears _him_ , her twin is born anew, if only for a second. It’s quite a long time for an angel. The shadows, the ghosts, they fight against her natural angelic programming to forget, to separate then and now. It fucking hurts most days, a battle never asked for but one she fights anyway.

Gabriel’s not built for this kind of understanding, they know. Still, she tries anyway.

“I just don’t know how he did it,” she finally whispers, “How he seems to keep doing it, day after day.” They’re starting to think they’re a little jealous.

“There’s something strange about all of this,” they continue, trying to call it into words, find its shape.

Gabriel had thought- “Understanding and Mysteries,” she finally whispers. That’s what’s bugging her. 

Gabriel sends her a wave of confusion, which she solidifies into the sentiment he’d sent only hours earlier. The Angel of Mysteries wandering the Earth with the former Angel of Understanding. The former angel whose place Aziraphale had taken.

The Ineffable Plan.

“There’s more going on here than we realize,” she says slowly, facing her little brother with the stern visage of all tired, overwrought older siblings. “And it goes far beyond Aziraphale.”

Gabriel blinks then groans. “How did this become our lives?”

Michael chuckles once. “We were never promised it would be easy, just that it would be worth it,” he says grimly.

Gabriel sends a pulse of solidarity. “Look, I have to deal with comms. Rafe and I are combing through our Earth placements. We'll handle yours as well, okay?”

She smiles wanly at their thoughtfulness. “Thank you."

“Take care of yourself, Michael.”

A mountain of paperwork awaits her, along with new meetings and training regimens. She adds collaboration with Uriel, Gabriel, and Raphael’s departments to her growing list. There are bound to be questions. The host’ll probably swarm him in the coming days with questions, assertions, accusations of an angel mistreated. She will not fault them for it.

She tucks the file away and gently seeks out Uriel. Her fellow archangel acknowledges them, which is far more than what she’s done for the rest of the host, but reminds them that Michael is not privy to any information Uriel could give, not if they want to remain on the board.

 _No, I want to know about you,_ they correct the young angel, _How are you?_

There’s a pregnant pause before Uriel replies, _He is...not what I expected._

* * *

 

Uriel cuts Michael off as she walks deeper into the shop, where Aziraphale is fussing over a pair of humans. The older one is babbling away with some thanks while the younger is seemingly shell-shocked, tense and quiet even in the face of Aziraphale’s care. 

Once again, she’s uncertain of her place. Aziraphale himself has conjured some tea, which he hands to the older human to serve before he enters the office proper. Even from several feet away, Uriel can feel the warmth, protection, and healing magics lovingly woven into the liquid.

She thinks the humans are two women. They feel like it anyway but there’s a dark edge to one of the identities she doesn’t recognize, like she’s desperately holding onto it with broken fingers as she’s pulled into an abyss behind her. It’s been a long time since Uriel’s seen humans wearing so little, too. 

“And anyway, that’s why we darted in here, Mr. Fell, we had no idea you was out,” the older one apologizes again.

“Nonsense,” Aziraphale brushes it off once more, returning with a blanket and a wet flannel. “You were perfectly within your rights. How is little Sarah, Maude? Nearing school age, I imagine.”

The older woman calms a bit and washes up while the younger tenses.

“Yeah. Good, she’s good. Staying with my sister ‘til this piss is done. She’s talkin’ now, thank God, expect one day we’ll have a problem gettin’ her to stop,” she finishes with a wet laugh.

Aziraphale tries to hand the younger one the blanket but the woman refuses.

“I’m sure she will be a delightful child. She has you two for mothers,” he replies.

“You should take it,” Uriel tells the younger woman, reminding them all of her presence.

The two women tense further and Aziraphale shoots her a look where they can’t see it.

“You look cold,” she offers, trying to copy his tone and only marginally succeeding.

The women eye her with suspicion and turn back to Aziraphale, looking for guidance.

“Uriel, Maude and Poppy,” he introduces then gestures at her, “Maude, Poppy, this is Uriel, she’s my-”

“Sister,” Uriel interrupts, finding a seat atop a large, sturdy stack of books. 

The women blink, glance back and forth between her and Aziraphale, reassessing.

“At any rate, I had to pick her up at the train station at the crack of dawn today. Poor dear lives in the country,” he finishes conspiratorially, like it is a terrible burden to be from the country. Uriel notes the way Aziraphale can so easily weave the truth into a reasonable lie, several of their previous interactions shifting in light of this new information.

Maude ‘ah’s quietly, Poppy finally takes the blanket and wraps it around herself. 

“Welcome,” Maude says. “Hope we don’t scare you off or nothin’.”

Confusion besets her again. 

“Keep her ‘way from the side streets near the docks,” Poppy finally speaks, her voice low and gravelly, curling further into the blanket.

“I have lived here for a long while, my dear,” Aziraphale tells her with a friendly pat on her hand.

“Don’t we know it,” Maude says with a wink. “My mum swears you was running this shop when she was a girl.”

Aziraphale laughs as Uriel’s eyes widen. “Oh, she would, wouldn’t she?”

Maude and Poppy snicker as they let Aziraphale herd them upstairs where a bed and a change of clothes await. Uriel desperately wants to talk to someone, anyone, about all of this, about Aziraphale and what he is doing and what she missing. But she can't. She can't even bounce anything off of Sandalphon because he is so deeply connected to the host that many of his thoughts leak into the host without him recognizing it. She takes a deep breath and steels herself. She is an Archangel, she knows her Duty, and she will figure out the rest as she goes.

“Who are they?” she asks when Aziraphale returns.

He pauses then says, “They live several blocks from here. Maude smokes to kingdom come and makes a rather nice homemade sherry if you can get on her lists. Poppy can recite Shakespeare as well as any actor currently on stage and knits rather fine-”

“What happened to them? Earlier, not today,” she adds for clarification.

“That is not my story to tell,” Aziraphale says primly, bordering on a huff, “Now, if you will excuse me, I have quite a lot of bookkeeping to finish today,” he inishes as he turns on his heel and enters his office, shutting the door. Uriel watches him through the door (he pulls on some glasses he doesn’t need and gets to work), watches the humans upstairs, watches the world wake and get a move on around her. 

He spends the day writing, checking, and reading. Most of it is that bookkeeping but there are other papers, some small, one large, which he gathers and scribbles on but Uriel doesn’t try to pry. Not yet. He exits the office only to see his charges off with a handshake and out the back door that afternoon. Uriel, understanding she had crossed a boundary earlier, makes herself scarce. She continues watching. 

Twilight begins falling over the shop and she sighs, mentally motions to the host that they’ll return soon. She has to physically stop and take a steadying breath at the waves of emotion that wash towards her. How Aziraphale could think that being nearly cut off from _this_ is normal or expected, she will never know. Because that is the only explanation she can rationally find. Their bonds are weak, yes. His bonds back to them are also fractured. He had to know it was happening, had to reason himself into some kind of self-explanation. It’s the only one she can see for his silence on the matter. Unless he wants to cut himself off. That is ridiculous. Yes, the host can be overwhelming at times. Yes, she now knows firsthand, as opposed to receiving it from another in the host, exactly why Jegudiel was so insistent and worked so long to finalize the bureaucracy. Experience is an excellent teacher. But still. He is the Angel of Mysteries; did duty play a hand in this? Or was it just his desire to lock all his lies away from prying eyes?

She exhales. She is not built for such thinking and pondering. 

Aziraphale leaves his office and blinks, stopping short in front of her. He couldn’t have forgotten she was there, could he?

“It is time, then?” he says, feigning lightness.

“How do you know that?” she probes a little carelessly.

“Gabriel just sent word,” he says, frowning, like he wants to say more but decides against it. Because of course he does.

“Ah,” she replies, instead of explaining herself. She turns and walks back to the front door.

“Did you not-” he starts, following her.

“I informed them,” she says tightly, stepping into the smog-tinted evening.

Aziraphale is smart, always has been. “How did-”

“Why don’t you tell me?” she snaps. He cannot be this oblivious. He goes quiet. She watches his lips purse and his eyebrows furrow as he puzzles his way through that information.

They walk in silence back to the office building and up the escalator. Jegudiel meets them. She twines their fingers as he says warmly, “Hello, again, little brother. You ready for our meeting?”

* * *

Michael eyes the midnight proceedings warily. Aziraphale and Jegudiel sit on the opposite side of the small room to the disciplinary board, several physical notebooks placed neatly alongside celestial regulations. Gabriel stands between the two groups, the first boxes of miracles and Knowledge stacked beside him as he fiddles with the projector. Uriel stands at the door, watching the proceedings and keeping the rest of the host out of them. The Metatron, though the Voice of the Almighty, has said not a word since they entered and sat. Barachiel thus far speaks for the board, though Michael notes the tension growing along her features. A gentle prod and Barachiel lets Michael see: the host’s curiosity, the concern, the desire to be present. They’re not even attempting to breach the shield but it already strains under the weight. Michael feeds his power and authority into the shield; the host slinks back like reprimanded cats.

“Yes, agreed, the garden and what happened therein is outside the scope of this investigation,” Barachiel is agreeing now that Aziraphale has produced a small globe of the moment he spoke with the Almighty on the issue. Michael still finds herself gobsmacked that of all the statements and lies Aziraphale has apparently told over the years, that one is true. Why the Lord would do such a thing still baffles her. It is not their place to question Her but they are allowed to wonder. Michael has a feeling they will be doing a lot of that in the coming years. Was it really only last night he confessed? They are starting to think these last fifty years before Armageddon will be the longest of their very long life.

“It’s an audit, you don’t get to just choose to skip something,” Barachiel snaps at Jegudiel’s request as Michael returns his attention to the proceedings.

“We’re not asking you to skip things entirely,” Jegudiel counters, miracling the correct regulation onto the board’s desks. “We’re asking for a number of verbal cues. Under 15337.90365.964(c)A, an angel may request that certain experiences be discussed only, rather than visually demonstrated or memory pulled.”

“And when would you expect to make the request?” Selaphiel asks, tapping a baton to take notes. “What I mean is, do you know which portions you want verbal commentary on now or is this a distress request to be filed when necessary?”

“Both, Archangel,” Jegudiel says, “We are willing to submit certain items at this time however given the sheer scope of the Principality’s mission, it is necessary to keep some verbal cues in reserve for when he needs them.”

“And how do we know you will not take advantage of it to conceal a particular potentially incriminating moment, Archangel?” Barachiel replies.

Aziraphale squirms in his seat. 

“We make no accusations, Barachiel,” Michael intervenes, “Strike that from the record. Accommodations will be granted. We will review the moments you request, ensure they meet the standards for approval, and affix them into the process. If they do not, they will be examined as per regulations. Additionally, you will have six at-ready verbal cues to be used at your discretion. In return, you will allow for detailed inquiry, no matter how small the detail, into the items you request now. Is that acceptable?”

Jegudiel glances down at Aziraphale who gives a small nod. “Make it seven, guarantee breaks, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Perfectly acceptable,” Raphael accepts for them all.

“Great,” Jegudiel replies with a grin and snaps, miracling a small stack of papers in front of each board member.

“How many moments are these?” Selaphiel asks.

“Two dozen,” Jegudiel answers, “And, again, given that this is an audit of six thousand years, I think we’re being rather generous.”

Michael has no idea what Jegudiel’s play is, pointing out that little tidbit. Public opinion or the Heavenly equivalent means little such matters.

“As this process is new to everyone,” Jegudiel continues, “I also think we should have a demonstration round so everyone knows what to expect and what to do for the real thing tomorrow night.”

Michael shakes his head. The Metatron’s eyebrows fly up their face as Selaphiel giggles and Barachiel tries not to roll her eyes. 

“This is highly-”

“Sorry, buried in clause 6835492, subsection 342 of the union contract with Heavenly management. Apologies for not citing sooner,” Jegudiel says smugly. He enjoys getting reactions out of others too much.

“I vote approve,” Raphael says, leaning back in their chair with a small pad and pen, then calls, “Gabriel, those miracle and Knowledge reports go back to the garden, right?”

“I see some, yes,” Gabriel confirms.

Aziraphale nods at Jegudiel, who then says, “Given that we have agreed that the garden is outside the purview of this inquiry, we consent to using that Knowledge and those miracles for the practice run.”

“Agreed, I approve as well,” Selaphiel says.

The Metatron says nothing, which leaves Michael and Barachiel to decide. They could fight it, there’s another regulation which stipulates that four of the five members must approve the trial run, but Michael intuits that fight isn’t worth it. Not when the secondary goal is to rebuild their connections with their wayward little brother.

So Barachiel swallows her objection and Michael says, “I approve,” followed by Barachiel’s agreeing grunt.

Gabriel gathers the garden-tagged Knowledge globes, Aziraphale had performed no miracles back then, and feeds them into the projector. It’s not a projector humans would recognize. It’s more like the globes are attached to a ribbon which feeds into a column of light which begins at the top of area and ends at the bottom. When the first globe meets the light, the light narrows into something like a laser. Then the light spreads tendrils into all the participants, who can then see the circumstances of the recorded miracle or Knowledge, along with its associated tags. They won’t feel what he felt or be able to see beyond his experience, which is part of the point.

“The audit every night will begin thusly,” Michael explains as Gabriel finishes setting up, “The inquiry will be called to order, the previous night’s minutes summarized, then we will call roll. You will be asked to confirm your name, Purpose, and assignment as you see it. Once that is complete, we will start the miracle and Knowledge reports where we left off, accommodations excepted. We will ask you to explain what was happening, what you did, and the immediate outcome. We may ask details of thoughts and feelings pursuant to establishing a pattern of behavior. You and your representative may dispute these at any time. Do you understand, Principality?”

“Yes, Archangel,” Aziraphale replies with a nod.

“Ready,” Gabriel confirms for the room.

Michael rearranges the papers on their desk and says, “Then let us begin. Please state your name, Purpose, and assignment as you see it for the record.”

Aziraphale stands. “I am the Principality Aziraphale, Keeper of Secrets and Mysteries. I collect, unravel, and distribute secrets and Mysteries as needed. My assignment on Earth is to perform the tasks Heaven assigns me and to assist humanity where possible.”

Michael nods and goes through the call list. Once finished, she gestures at Gabriel to begin. He snaps his fingers and the first globe enters the stream as slithering tendrils connect the attending angels to the experience.

As beings whose consciousness often exists within the heady soup of the host, not quite blending together as one but each reinforcing and enhancing one another, it takes little time for him to adjust. He pulls his being back just slightly, finessing the line between experience and self. She feels out the others, Selaphiel adjusting hirself easily. Barachiel and Raphael each take a moment while Michael assists Uriel and Gabriel. Jegudiel rights himself and lightly taps at Aziraphale, who bats him away with a tut.

When everyone is ready, Gabriel activates the light.

It’s dark and full of animal chatter. The stars and the moon glow brightly across the sand like white glass. Aziraphale’s perspective shifts downwards to the wall upon which he seems to be standing or sitting. There’s a sword nearby, it’s on fire, and is currently resting against the wall’s ramparts. Michael winces slightly as Aziraphale seems to be treating it as a source of light rather than deadly weapon. He has a feather in his writing hand, celestial parchment in his other. He sighs lightly, then turns as a sound catches his attention.

Above the buzzing of insects, the chattering of animals, and the rustling of trees rise two voices, one low, one high. They sing but not any tune Michael immediately recognizes. Selaphiel’s certainty sweeps through the archangels and the Metatron. This is a song of Creation. Not The Song, but one near enough to it, Selaphiel informs them.

“Where did they learn _that_?” ze blurts out. 

Aziraphale chuckles a little fondly. He almost seems surprised by his own reaction. “That would be the Mystery,” he replies, “They simply started singing it, no celestial or infernal interference I could find.”

Michael shakes their head in disbelief, exchanging it and mild shock with Gabriel. Never said it would be easy, indeed.

“Did they Create anything?” Barachiel asks, impressed in spite of herself.

“That is not important,” Michael interrupts, though they too would like the answer, it is irrelevant in the current proceedings.

“Regs do say he can explain why he cataloged and tagged Knowledge for storage, Michael,” Jegudiel says, more than a little pride seeping into his voice.

Michael nods and Aziraphale quickly says, “Dogs came into being the next morning. At any rate, the Knowledge that humans could Create on any scale at all, let alone this one, is why I sent it back to the Archives. How they learned they could do it, I’ve no idea.”

“Any other questions,” Michael says, though their tone brooks no such question. The garden is interesting, she will acknowledge that, but it has no bearing beyond this demonstration. Furthermore, the night is fading fast and she would like to wrap up this portion before dawn.

Gabriel clicks his fingers and the next globe stutters in. 

Aziraphale walks to the gate, flaming sword in hand, when he spots the two humans. Some time has passed; Eve is obviously pregnant. Michael doesn’t need an explanation for this moment. Aziraphale stops in between the trees and brush, just out of their lines of sight, and observes them for a long moment. He apparently comes to some decision because his left hand clenches and he exhales a soft, “Right.” He walks to them, speaks, and hands them the sword. He then gestures for them to exit and wishes them good luck.

It’s a simple few moments. Michael awaits the catch.

“It’s to do with orders,” Aziraphale explains quietly, “That is, our orders from Above. I had been ordered to drive them from the garden however the moment I saw them, well, that is, I had a Revelation.”

Everyone trades wide-eyed looks. Even the Metatron looks a little queasy.

“It would take me many more experiences to fully embrace it as such but. The Revelation was this: that our orders are not the all-encompassing force we have made them out to be,” Aziraphale’s voice starts quiet but slowly gains strength as he continues, “They are not...limitations upon our behavior or actions, they are the least the Almighty expects of us.”

Michael could hear a pin drop in the following moments. This string of Knowledge, and they’ve only begun weaving it, Lord, she shudders to think what more will follow, is more than any of them anticipated, let alone can easily handle.

“Explain, Aziraphale,” the Metatron says, finally breaking their silence.

“Oh, certainly,” he says, ducking his head then bringing it back up, “My orders were to force the humans out of the garden if they should break the rule. But as I watched them, I realized that no one had ordered me to do nothing more, yes? I could, for example, kill them outside the walls or, as I decided, assist them in some manner. Driving them out was the least action expected of me. It was, well, it was my choice to make. Do the minimum or do more, do what I thought was right. That is why I gave them the sword, because I thought it good and because I could. D-does that make sense?”

Michael blinks long and hard. The rest of the board seems as equally stunned. Orders are to be followed, assignments finished, Purposes are to be fulfilled. That is how it’s supposed to work. Follow orders and the result would justify it. Going beyond orders, beyond the assignment, beyond your Purpose? Because no one stops you? Oh, Lord.

“And how do you know that your revelation is not some self-justification for doing what you desired?” the Metatron asks. 

Michael should strike it as improper, Jegudiel as well. But before either of them can respond, Aziraphale hotly says, “I am the Angel of Mysteries, I Know when one is solved. I pondered and examined that moment, and others like it, for centuries. It took me five thousand years of rumination to finally believe it but I Knew that very moment it was a Revelation.”

At least the timing explains why this particular Revelation never made it to the host. Michael braces himself for the maelstrom that will surely follow once this portion of the inquiry leaks into the host proper. This, this is too much. And they haven’t even started yet!

“Strike the Metatron’s question and Aziraphale’s answer from the inquiry record on the grounds of improper questioning and procedure,” Barachiel finally says, turning a concerned look on Michael. 

“The final globe, if you please, Gabriel,” Raphael adds.

Mouth slightly agape, Gabriel complies and they are all plunged into Aziraphale’s first conversation with the demon. Looking at him, Michael cannot see anything special, not even a whisper of who this demon was because the experience is filtered through Aziraphale and he cannot sense a demon’s lost angelic nature. The demon blasphemes, questions the Almighty and Her punishment towards the humans. Aziraphale, to his credit, does defend the Plan as he should. The demon begins to lose interest in the conversation until he comments on the sword. Aziraphale’s answer renders him momentarily breathless, then the demon scrambles to reassure Aziraphale over his actions. They speak until the rain comes and the demon slinks under Aziraphale’s wing. Michael tries not to flinch at letting an enemy get that close. 

“It’s not Holy Water,” Aziraphale tells him a few moments later.

The demon makes a face. “Still don’t like it. ‘S cold and wet.”

“It is, that,” Aziraphale agrees.

“You’re not going to get in trouble for letting that whole apple business happen, are you?” the demon says suddenly. “They’re not going to replace you or something like that?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” Aziraphale replies, “I wasn’t to stop them from doing anything. Humans are creatures of choice, after all.”

The demon blinks. “Right,” he drawls, clearly done with the conversation as the rain eases over Eden and worsens over the desert. 

He steps back towards the stairs, then turns to Aziraphale. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

“It’s Aziraphale. The Principality Aziraphale.”

The demon’s lips slowly twitch into a smile. “Aziraphale,” he pronounces slowly, “I’ll remember that.”

The memory stops, the globe dims. Aziraphale himself speaks, “Ah, yes, that one is a piece of the Mystery of Kindness, what it can bring into the world, that it can be found in the unlikeliest of places, and whether we can _be_ kind for its own sake or if there must always be an ulterior motive. That one in particular concerns the Mystery as it pertains to demons, to which the answer is obviously yes, they are as capable of it as you and I are.”

Jegudiel claps once and the projector disconnects.

“Well, look at that, it’s dawn. Sorry we ran over, we’ll do better tonight. Aziraphale, you’re free to go, I’ll finish the notes here and send them down. Good-bye,” Jegudiel says quickly.

Aziraphale stands, nods, and leaves, a stunned Uriel following in his wake.

An inquiry frozen behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your support for this little story thus far. It took several weeks of work but we're here and we're in for a ride. Please leave any comment you feel like, even a favorite line or an extra kudos helps me keep going. I really appreciate it, thanks.


	5. I couldn't stop it, tried to slow it all down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Learning is painful. And everyone has a lot to learn in the fallout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly neighborhood reminder that angelic POVs are extremely limited, they are not objective narrators and should not be taken as such.

Uriel had thought she’d found the limits of her patience with Aziraphale after his confession. But now, as she picks up speed heading back to the shop, she knows better. The inquiry’s demonstrations loop through her mind on never-ending repeat. Her steps grow harder with each repetition. She clenches her jaw and tries to maintain her composure. Her heels storm across the concrete. Briefly, selfishly, she wishes for the pair of boots she wore back in the heyday of the Ottoman Empire. They had a weight she is sorely missing.

She’s not the only one. Just beyond her, the host is chewing on the night’s discoveries like a dog with a new bone. Word, though not the demonstration itself, of Aziraphale’s garden actions travels like traffic on a newly unblocked highway. Slice after slice of the host is taking the ideas apart and analyzing them from each angel's unique vantage point. Those who haven't dismissed it outright, at any rate. Some have but the vast majority are sieving the ideas down to their base components and examining what remains. The former and current earth agents in particular wade through the implications with grim, single minded determination.

Uriel, however, is currently more interested in the spread itself. Yes, the garden is not part of the inquiry. No, that does not mean it’s sanctioned for release yet. Someone purposely flung it into the host and now that it’s there, it’s not going anywhere. It galls her like a personal insult. She concentrates on the information itself, tries to chase it back to its source while walking with Aziraphale and simultaneously coordinating with her department and Michael over this. She is the Watchman. She will find it.

“Is something the matter?” Aziraphale asks as he opens the door for her. His lips quirk in a small, smug smile.

Her frustration bubbles over. “What do you think,” she snaps and finds her way to the backroom where she can concentrate in peace.

Aziraphale isn’t done with her. “Really now-”

“Aziraphale, do not start right now,” she warns.

Uriel traces the release to Jegudiel of all people. Her shoulders stiffen and her throat closes as she and Michael pull her favorite brother into an archangel conference. She growls as he mentally stands firm, throwing regulation after regulation at them for the release. She pushes back- this is supposed to be coordinated, why didn’t you just warn us first-

Aziraphale huffs at her. It is a tiny, pointed exhale through his nose.

“Fine,” she seethes at Aziraphale and allows the others take the lead with Jegudiel, “the problem, Aziraphale, is that you _kept that_ from us.”

He takes a step back, confusion furrowing his brows. “I’m af-”

“The Creation, Aziraphale,” she interrupts as she steps around a large stack of books to better survey her brother’s expressions. Weak as their connections are, it’s the only way she can remotely gauge his thoughts. “You kept it from us for six thousand years. You deliberately hid something like that then _weaponized_ it today.”

Aziraphale scowls at her. “Kept it?” he scoffs, stills his hands, and straightens like he did back in the inquiry. “You saw it from my report-”

Uriel takes two steps, closes the gap between them. He leans back, Uriel leans towards him.

“That’s the problem, Aziraphale,” she says again. The Archives are for private information and Knowledge not meant for the host. It has no direct connection to the host, just as it has no direct connection to the demonic horde. “It’s in the damned report. It was nowhere else. You sent it to the Archives and kept it from the rest of us. You’re still keeping it from us-”

“I did my job, the Knowledge is stored in the Archives. I filed the correct reports, I’ve not kept anything-”

Uriel seethes. Any other sibling and she would be throwing her whole being at them, her thoughts, her feelings, everything that is too difficult to say, everything that words cannot convey. Between the exchange, they would come to some resolution and if they could not, they would at least come away knowing each other’s selves better for the future. But this is Aziraphale, with tenuous connections at best. She has no idea what will happen should she try that.

She fumbles for a second, unfamiliar with conflict and resolution on this purely surface level, then continues, “The experience, Aziraphale, you kept it from us.”

She knows not how to get through to him. She tries emphasizing her words like Gabriel at his most frustratingly punctuated. “It was not part of us. We could not look for it because we did not know it existed to find. You did not share it with us. We still cannot properly call on it. And you used it like that.”

Aziraphale remains quiet for a long moment. Uriel takes a deep breath and shakes her head. She takes a step out of his space. This is getting her nowhere. If he’s going to be this obtuse, she might as well turn her full attention back to the conference- at least she can contribute to their discussion of how Aziraphale’s explanations may impact the host and prepare her department.

“Uriel,” Aziraphale asks quietly as she turns away, “does your reaction concern your duty?”

Uriel sighs, doesn’t look at him. “Of course it does.”

“How, specifically?” Quiet urgency underlines his question.

Her duty to him compels her to answer. “Humans can Create.” _Like Her_ , remains unsaid. “That changes things.”

“Which things?”

She laughs once, a dark thing pulled from the deepest recesses of her being. Humans can Create. Orders are not all-encompassing.

“Everything.”

She could hear a pin drop in the following silence.

“You have the Knowledge now-”

“Not really,” she corrects, “We have your summary of the Knowledge, only that piece of it. Not your experience of it, not the full context, not the actual moment, nothing with which to compare and analyze, only that it was important enough to report but not enough to share.”

She has the song’s sounds, not its Power. She has his word that dogs were Created shortly thereafter, not the certainty that it actually happened. Selaphiel only recognized the tune because of what ze is; Uriel shudders to think what could have happened had ze not been there to verify the record. They would be none the wiser, only Aziraphale’s word to testify to its importance.

“And if you had had the experience? From the Beginning?” Aziraphale asks tentatively.

Uriel shifts to better glare at him. “That is not a fair question.”

How dare he even ask. He is the one who ensured they were operating on incomplete information for millennia. He doesn't get to question what they did when he refused to grant them such basic, necessary information. She is the Angel of Duty; he has compromised her fundamental Purpose for centuries. She can only make decisions and assignments based on known information. Of course things could have occurred differently. Her insides burn. For all their power, they cannot change the past.

“We didn’t know.”

And doesn’t that sting.

* * *

 Gabriel steeples his fingers together as his conferences with the Archangels and upper management end. He hates conferences. He had had to summon every ounce of patience and focus not to follow Uriel's lead and tune out Jegudiel and Barachiel’s little spat. Barachiel is taking the released information like a castle commander asked to throw wide the gates for an enemy horde. Uriel had taken it like it was a personal affront and she couldn't decide whose act, Aziraphale or Jegudiel, deserved her full ire. Gabriel sympathizes. And really hopes Aziraphale has the common sense She gave a mollusk.

Jegudiel has gotten off lightly, all things considered. Perks of a clean record and knowing the celestial code inside and out, Gabriel supposes. Time was tongue-lashings would have been literal. Not that Gabriel misses those times, not by a long shot. He hates dealing out punishments more than conferences.

Things have been moving at a breakneck pace, non-stop over the last few days, breathless in a way he's never dealt with before. Gabriel supposes he's going to have to get used to it, somehow. He hasn't had a chance to stop and really think about their situation yet, about Aziraphale and what the audit and his new reveals actually mean. Truthfully, he doesn't really _want_ to consider the ramifications. He had known Aziraphale had gathered Mysteries and had developed a love of humanity. Anyone, connections or no, could see that. But to discover the reason behind it all, that humans could Create, that perhaps orders were baselines, not caps, Gabriel hasn't yet had the space or time to sit and really contemplate it all. Much of the host certainly is. Some dismiss Aziraphale's conclusion regarding orders; no one can dismiss humanity as Creators, not with the Angel of Song's confirmation and the musical department's affirmation.

He stands and Sandalphon enters the office.

"You are uneasy," Sandalphon observes.

"What gave me away?" Gabriel asks, dark humor coloring his tone.

"I do not see why. Aziraphale is as he always has been, the Angel of Mysteries."

Gabriel shakes his head and leans on his desk. Mysteries are one thing. Aziraphale's supposed to solve them, not hide them. "So what do you think about all of this?"

Sandalphon doesn't answer verbally, he instead shows Gabriel a series of images, coupled with feelings and memories of their shared past. It all adds up to the fact that Sandalphon is confused himself but that he is used to things happening around him he does not fully comprehend. He's a lower order of angel, Created to do and follow orders. It's not his place to question why a principality went rogue, even if he is curious. Gabriel wishes he could have a fraction of Sandalphon's acceptance or ability to just go along with changes or new information. Because Gabriel just can't. He wasn't made for it; connection and communication are his things and their little brother is anything but communicative.

Sandalphon points out, "He just communicates differently now."

So differently it's like Aziraphale's speaking infernal instead of celestial. Then again, if anyone up here did speak infernal, it would be him.

Sandalphon sends him images of Aziraphale's environment, of his fidgets and myriad of expressions. Aziraphale may not  _speak_ well with them anymore, he may not be tightly connected, but that doesn't mean he's stopped communicating altogether for one who's looking. How did Gabriel miss it?

"It's a very human form," Sandalphon says as Gabriel comes to the same conclusion. They're angels, they expect angelic communication. But Aziraphale's been down there so long, he's had to adjust and with minimal celestial contact, of course he would default to human methods.

Uriel pokes him, asks him to please give her a break or she's liable to do something they all will regret. She really is taking Aziraphale's Knowledge hard. Gabriel confirms he will be down in a few minutes. He has a delivery to make anyway and now is as good a time as any.

Sandalphon nods at him then wishes him luck with, "Just talk."

Gabriel blinks as his eyes adjust to the bright London day. The shop buzzes with warmth and protection, radiating into the surrounding streets. A wicker basket sits on the stoop, its red glass bottles safe under the wards. Gabriel picks it up anyway. He opens the shop door and steps out of Uriel's way. Anger saturates the gratitude she gives him. She disappears down the block. Gabriel winces as he enters the shop, setting the basket down just inside, and pauses. Really looks at the place. It's a labyrinth of books, crammed into the smallest nooks and crannies and stacked on the highest shelves. A whole section sits up in the dome where no human will ever reach. It looks like the human version of the archives, now that Gabriel thinks about it. Humans are Creators and Aziraphale has been curating their knowledge. No wonder Aziraphale had been reluctant to leave the post to Michael.

“Gabriel?” Aziraphale asks as he emerges from a large shelf in the east quadrant. It hits him like a ton of bricks. His brother never has stopped being the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. Aziraphale puts his hands behind his back as confusion overtakes his expression.

“I...brought your objectives for this quarter,” Gabriel replies a bit awkwardly, gesturing at the stack of files in his hands.

“Ah. Thank you,” Aziraphale says but makes no move to take them.

They end up in an awkward standoff. Gabriel should know what to say and there is a lot he wants to say but moment after moment passes and he can't quite break his silence. It's tough when you have too much to say to someone who listens far too little.

“Those are for this quarter-century?” Aziraphale finally inquires, all polite disinterest.

“No, no, just this quarter,” Gabriel says, “Figured we should keep things...small, for now.”

“Ah.”

A beat.

“You could just leave them on the display beside you. I know you are quite busy.”

Gabriel shakes his head. “You know I can't do that. Leave, that is, until Uriel comes back.”

“Right.”

Internally, he groans. He was created for communication, for the Almighty's pronouncements, why is he so tongue-tied? Especially now, when words are so damn important, when they're the only way he can communicate with his little brother?

Sandalphon taps Gabriel's essence, sends him the image of a jog through the park. Gabriel can feel Sandalphon's equivalent of eye rolling in it. Right. Okay.

“So, in light of all,” he glances around the room and back, “this, I figured we should set a time. To meet, to talk about everything. How you’re doing, how this, you and me, is supposed to work now, the assignment, that sort of thing.”

“I’m, I’m sorry?” Aziraphale says, his voice squeaking on the final syllable. Fuck. “What are you-”

“What I mean is, you’re to continue here until the audit ends. That could take a while.” A long while; if last night is any indication, they will definitely run right into the Apocalypse. “Which means until then, I am your supervisor and it’s my job to ensure that you do yours without someone looking over your shoulder the entire time. Uriel does have other commitments on her time and it would be nice if one day, we could go back to the way things were.”

He’s done it again, said something incorrectly. Aziraphale’s eyes fall to the floor. Gabriel doesn’t need a connection to hear the ‘back’ his brother silently asks.

“Trusting you, Aziraphale,” Gabriel quickly clarifies, “trusting your judgement, your methods, your results. Instead of going over everything you do with a fine tooth comb to try to figure out what the hell you’re doing or thinking and why.”

Aziraphale schools his expression, smoothing worry and hurt from his lined face. Gabriel is starting to recognize it as a mask his little brother hides behind. Last night may be the headache which keeps on giving, but Aziraphale had been different. A guarded openness had stolen its way across his expression; Gabriel’s unsure if Aziraphale had even known how he’d looked. Amusement, pride, fondness, and yes, a dastardly bit of dark satisfaction at their reactions. A showman, his brother can be. His little brother can be so expressive that this… blank passivity, what Gabriel had once seen only as anxiety, now looks unnervingly wrong on Aziraphale’s face.

Gabriel breathes out. Fortune favors the bold, doesn't it, and he is the superior here. “You were the best of us. So we thought, anyway,” he says lowly, clearing his throat. Aziraphale cocks his head. “You excelled at any task we gave you, you kept your head among all of this, this stuff down here. I thought I didn’t have to worry after you or check up on you very much because you were so good. And to find out you were so good at lying-”

He stops himself. It’s still too raw. Give him another year, maybe two, and it will fully sink in what Aziraphale has done. But his brother doesn’t operate by those timetables. Not anymore. A year may as well be a human lifetime, it’s the same to him.

Gabriel swallows and calls on whatever empathy the Almighty gave him (it’s not much, he knows that, just enough to bridge the gaps between the host) and continues. “I should have checked in with you more, insisted that we talk more than a few times a century, asked you to come back more. You just seemed so fulfilled here I didn’t want to recall you unless we had to. But that’s an excuse. I should have done better by you.”

Gabriel averts his gaze from Aziraphale, glances around the shop to avoid his little brother’s hazel blue eyes.

“I was,” Aziraphale whispers then hastily adds, “I am. Fulfilled, that is. I enjoy my time here.”

Gabriel nods dumbly. “Well, that’s...something.”

The conversation lags again but this time Gabriel does put the files onto the display table. He puts his hands into his coat pockets to have something to do with them.

“You're going to recall me when this is all over, aren’t you?” It’s phrased as a question but its tone is anything but. It’s more resigned.

Gabriel blinks and sighs. “Not my call. But yes, that is a possibility.”

“I see.”

“That’s why you and I need to establish a new protocol as soon as possible,” Gabriel says, latching onto this new lifeline.

“I understand.”

“No, I don’t think you do. Look, what you did hurts. You lied and you kept lying by omission. You never once thought that we could or would help you. What I want to know is why. What did we do that was so awful?”

Aziraphale draws the moment out then takes a deep interest in the books to his left. “I would like to remain silent on the matter without my union representative present.”

Gabriel barely holds back a groan. Instead he says, “Oh, come on. Is this what we’re going to do until the end of the world? Just dance around the fact that you held so much back from us, then watched your connections decay until you metaphysically _couldn’t_ share anything? Is that what we’re doing, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale briefly glares at him before the rest of Gabriel’s statement catches up to him. “My connections?” he stammers, thrown for a loop.

Gabriel nods then takes a step forward, saying gently, “Yes, we know about that. We should have known earlier and I am sorry, Aziraphale, that I let my side of it get to this point. But you had to know what was happening. You let it happen, didn’t you?”

Aziraphale glues his gaze to the floor, doesn’t respond.

“I just want to know why,” Gabriel says into the gloom, choking up a little. And how much is our fault.

“It’s nothing personal,” Aziraphale finally replies.

Gabriel snorts. “That is not an answer.”

“It’s not personal, Gabriel,” Aziraphale asserts, his body taut as a wire.

“Then what happened? You’re still one of us. You were still connected with us after you _lied to God_. What the hell could you do that’s worse than that?”

“Do not presume you know me,” Aziraphale demands, “You haven’t a clue whom I have become.”

“Even with all your time down here, all your hiding, all your lying, I still know you, Aziraphale,” Gabriel snaps, finding himself at the edge of Aziraphale’s territory, his brother backed to his desk. “I may not know why you stopped trusting us. I may not know why you decided to do half the things you’ve done. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know you. I remember everything, Aziraphale. You love watching stars explode and charting their rebirth. You can’t sit still when debating a friend. You throw yourself into everything without a second thought. You don’t ask questions, you go around them until you find what you’re looking for. You don’t have it in you to be cruel. You are a preserver, Aziraphale. You hate fighting but you took one of the most demanding fronts in the war-”

“Enough,” Aziraphale snaps.

Gabriel takes a deep breath. Exhales slowly. “The point is that I know you,” he continues mildly. Time may add color but it cannot change anyone so fundamentally. “I know you wouldn’t cut yourself off without a good reason.”

There has to be a good reason (it’s not the demon, not entirely, Aziraphale himself said as much). There has to be _something_. Gabriel can’t take it if Aziraphale has learned to be cruel.

“Whatever it is, just let me help. Let us help you,” he all but pleads.

Aziraphale clams up. Again. He puts that blank mask back on. Again.

“Fine, you don’t want to talk. I can respect that. But you are going to listen, okay,” Gabriel says, this close to pinching the bridge of his nose. “All the secrecy, I could handle. It’s what you do, it’s part of who you are. I don’t get it, it’s the antithesis of everything I am, but I can deal with it. However, you could have just told me from the beginning. ‘Hi, boss, look, there’s stuff going on down here I’m looking into but I’d rather not share it until I finish up.’ That’s all you needed to say. We would have worked something out.”

“You don’t know that,” Aziraphale says quietly.

Gabriel nods. “At least we would have tried.”

Uriel tugs at him. She’s ready to return. She seems more settled. Good.

Gabriel holds Aziraphale’s gaze. “I have to get going. Work never ends.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes, takes a steadying breath. “Next Saturday, then? The meeting. Will next Saturday suffice?”

Gabriel squints at him. “Don’t you have...customers?”

Aziraphale gives a small, nervous grin. “Not if I can help it.”

Sandalphon points out that customers purchase objects to own and keep. Combine that with the shop as Aziraphale’s human archive and. Ah.

“Right,” he says then chuckles, mostly to himself. “Guess it’s too late to turn this place into a library.”

Aziraphale feeds him a look but his eyes crinkle in amusement. “Shopkeepers have discretion over who buys their wares when they’ve no need for money.”

Gabriel nods, smiling. “Next Saturday, then. And Aziraphale? Please be patient with us. We’re not used to all of...this. It’s a lot to take in.”

“It’s a lot to live through.”

“Friendly advice, then? Be gentler. It’s not a fight. They’ll follow your lead in attitude.”

“I will take that under advisement. Good day, Gabriel.”

“See you tonight, Aziraphale.”

* * *

The following few days are quieter. Thank the Almighty. Then again, Uriel thinks as she ends her departmental conference, that is only because the audit is proceeding in chronological order. These evenings have mostly been a string of miracles with very little Knowledge interrupting the flow. The only Knowledge of note was a fifty minute long interlude detailing Aziraphale’s ruminations on Death which occurred shortly after the world was rewritten to accommodate it. On the Earth outside the garden, death feeds life in a an almost perfect, enclosed system.

“It was truly awe-inspiring,” he’d explained, “to understand the Ineffable Plan in this form. To know that God foresaw all humanity’s possibilities and designed a world in which such a horrid event could still bear good fruit. Humans kill what they need to survive, lose what they love, but in the end, those losses help keep the world turning, help propagate life.”

It is indeed an awe-inspiring display of the Almighty’s power and love, one that Uriel has quietly turned over several times in her mind. It’s easier than dealing with the rest of that first, fateful night. And anyway, the rest of the host is handling those moments.

She notes that Aziraphale himself has been different during the inquiry since. Not obviously, but a touch of patience has grown in her brother and in turn, the board is more willing to satisfy not only their inquisitorial duties but also their own curiosity. Rather than be reassured by this small change, Uriel is waiting for the other shoe to drop. She doesn’t trust it as far as she can throw it; anticipation regularly constricts her chest until she feels like she’s choking on it.

“I’m going out for an afternoon snack and I was hoping you would join me,” Aziraphale announces moments after she ends her conference.

She blinks. Of course she is- “We don’t eat,” she says as she stands, stretching stiff muscles.

“I didn’t ask you to,” Aziraphale says, tapping his fingers together.

They exit the shop. Uriel falls in half a step behind Aziraphale. Several humans glance or stare at them as they pass. Uriel knows why, conceptually speaking, but it is still unnerving to be watched like that. She meets the looks and stares with her own.

“Why exactly are you doing this?” she asks as they round a corner and enter a small cafe.

Aziraphale ignores her question as he walks to the counter. The man there greets him with an accent noticeably different from the lighter-skinned patrons bustling in and out. Uriel joins Aziraphale at the counter. The man smiles, his eyes sparkling at Uriel.

“Welcome, welcome,” the man tells her, “it’s wonderful to meet you. What are you missing from home, eh?”

Uriel raises an eyebrow at the question, glances at Aziraphale, who smoothly interjects, “Paul, this is my sister Uriel. She’s visiting from the country. Uriel, this is Paul Lennox, he owns this establishment.”

Paul’s eyes widen as he hastily says, “Oh, I beg your pardon. I’d heard your sister was in town, Mr. Fell, I just didn’t realize- I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t offend me. No apologies are necessary.”

“Paul, do you have any of that tea I sampled last week, oh, what was it called-”

Paul regains his composure as Aziraphale finishes ordering with some sort of sweet bread and sandwiches. Paul hands them to Aziraphale then says, “And for you?”

Uriel is about to refuse when Aziraphale nudges her. He gives her a pointed look, glancing between her and his own order. She doesn’t know what to do. She knows that exchanging money is a way to support individuals and through them, communities. But. She casts the question, ordering food when one won’t consume it, to her Earthbound agents. Eremiel answers first, that humans can now store food in freezer boxes and that it can be miracled to someone in need of it after purchase. The others agree.

She orders something quickly. Aziraphale gives her a small smile. He guides her to a small table outside, hidden in the shadow of two buildings. Whispers follow as they pass, and she notices more than a few humans watching them as they sit. She banishes her order as Aziraphale tucks in to his.

“They’re all watching us,” she says mildly, spreading her awareness to the surrounding blocks.

Aziraphale swallows then says, “Well, you did tell them you are my sister. Word travels fast.”

“Then why did Paul react as he did?”

“Paul misses the warmth of the West Indies. He thought you were a fellow immigrant. He has a fair few for customers. It was an educated guess.”

“And we two being related is unlikely because we appear so different,” she asks, following the thread.

Aziraphale nods. “Humans have only increased self-sorting according to phenotype over the centuries. You and I are as far apart on their spectrum as is possible.”

“Are we that unlikely a pair?”

Aziraphale chuckles. “I think it’s more to do with the fact that none of them have ever thought of me as having any family. Or any past at all, really. I’m very good at blending in. Now they’re grappling with the new information and it’s as far from anything they could have possibly imagined. It’ll settle down in a few weeks, most likely.”

Uriel tries not to roll her eyes. “I know the feeling.”

Aziraphale pauses, places his fork on his plate. “You wanted to know why I came here. Well, there are three reasons I could give. First, I could argue it’s part of my job. Supporting this place keeps Paul’s family stable, his children in school- the girl has a keen mind for research that could do great things for the advancement of medicine- and gives his community a place to belong, which in turn strengthens each of them in the face of the immigrant hardships. Secondly, I quite enjoy the food. But, the third reason,” he thinks for a moment, “you remember the Beginning, just after the War?”

“I do.” How could she forget, she’s an angel.

“You remember how it was, with everyone, trying to set things to rights, how, how-”

“Fragile.”

“Yes, fragile, how brittle, how off-kilter everything was. How we went through the motions but so much had been lost,” he says, looking at his lap.

Uriel well remembers the months and years, when her existence felt like it was thrown out of its orbit. Or like the Earth itself on its wobbly axis, but losing spin until it clatters on the ground and just stops. So much had been lost. Picking through the devastated remains of their first Heaven, sorting through what needed doing, trying to make their host functional once more when it was so much swiss cheese. Those fragile early days when they’d clung to each other, double, triple-checked on one another, just to reaffirm that they were still here, still together. It’s not that they went back to the way things were, with half the host gone that couldn’t happen. But they did find a new normal, one which they still fight for to this day, and carried on.

“Yes. And what does that have to do with this?” she prompts after a few moments of silence.

“Oh. Right. You remember how the rebellion began.”

“I do.”

Questions about their place now that they’d been ordered to care for humanity. Jealousy that humans apparently were to be given choice, a concept which hadn’t existed until that moment. Refusal to follow orders. There had been more to it, Uriel knows, but she doesn’t like dwelling on it.

“Now imagine if just after the first War over heaven and humanity’s places in Creation, it became known that humans could not only choose, they could Create as She can, as we cannot,” Aziraphale whispers.

Uriel does him the favor of not laughing in his face. She instead stops, considers what he’s saying, then shakes her head.

“You think it would have caused another rebellion.”

It’s not a question but Aziraphale nods anyway.

“Tell me, have you actually deluded yourself into believing what you’re saying or are you simply hoping you can convince me that was your actual motive?”

If looks could kill, Uriel would be dead and buried under the cafe’s floorboards. As it is she meets his glare with one of her own.

She leans over the table. “You kept it hidden for hundreds of years even after we stabilized, Aziraphale. So don’t try to tell me that altruism and concern for your fellow angels drove your actions.”

“I could not be responsible for such a thing, for another angel falling or launching another war. I couldn’t _do_ it again, Uriel,” he hisses.

The absolute arrogance. To think that one could cause the fall of another, as if one does not have responsibility for their own actions and their consequences.

“You really don’t trust anyone, do you? Do you even trust yourself, I wonder?”

His surprised silence speaks volumes. She straightens in her seat.

“If you had a modicum of faith or trust in us, we would not be having this conversation,” she says, trying to remain calm. “Instead, you would know down into your essence that the host is working through your revelation and guess what? There is no rebellion, no stirrings of such a thing. There are questions. Loads of them. There is regret, anger, love, reconsideration and more. We are considering the Knowledge and integrating it. We are supporting one another, not falling to pieces. We can handle it. We always could.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “Not back then.”

“No, not back at the Beginning,” she concedes, “But as I said. Times change.”

Aziraphale falls silent, his tea and treats abandoned.

“It’s nearly sunset,” Uriel says, standing, when she catches sight of a red-headed man in black two blocks behind Aziraphale. It can’t be, can it?

Aziraphale stands and snaps his fingers, sending his food back to his shop. He gestures for her to lead the way. She does, though most of her focus is on the being who, she quickly realizes, is following them. The hairstyle may be different and his eyes may be obscured by thick black sunglasses, but the planes and angles match the demon in the garden. The faint smell of evil which permeates every human settlement settles more acutely in her awareness the longer she focuses on him. It’s subtle in a way she normally doesn’t see in demons. She could almost be impressed at how good he is at blending into humanity but he’s still an enemy, Aziraphale’s demon or no.

When Uriel and Aziraphale enter the office building, the demon stops, still lurking a block behind them. Definitely following them, then. But he’s not doing anything save watching. So far.

“Ah, Aziraphale, how’re you doing? Glad you’re a little early, we need to go over this one bit real quick,” Jegudiel says, gesturing for Aziraphale to follow him up the escalator to his office.

Uriel remains behind, her Purpose battling itself within her. Aziraphale hasn’t contacted the demon, though he has a duty to do so if he truly cares about him. Said demon is also an enemy agent, one whom she is supposed to thwart. She takes a deep breath and, before she can think about it too hard, she exits the building. She summons her bow as she crosses the street, making a beeline for him.

He scrambles back into an alleyway but it’s a dead end. She plants herself at the mouth, fighting every instinct to raise her weapon and draw. She grips it so tightly that mortal wood would split under the force. He stares at her, practically vibrating out of his corporation. Uriel doesn’t see what is so special about him.

Once she can gather the words through her warring duties, she says, “You really should be more careful. We know what you’re up to.”

He puffs up with a scoff, hand raised, thumb, index, and middle fingers coming together. She raises the bow, draws the string-

 _Uriel, we are starting_ , comes Michael’s summons.

-She releases it, focuses on this new duty over the others. She grits her teeth as she slowly walks backwards towards the entrance. The demon stares her down until she turns the corner but makes no further moves. He's still in that alleyway when she miracles the main entrance open.

Once inside, she flees upstairs, her bow still tightly clutched in her hand, unshed tears in her eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your support and patience. Please leave any comment you feel like, even a favorite line or an extra kudos helps me keep going. I really appreciate it, thanks.


	6. Everything kept moving and the noise grew too loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piece by hard won piece, the angels are slowly learning who their brother has become and what he has done. 
> 
> Piece by hard won piece, their world keeps changing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is your friendly reminder that angelic POVs are quite limited.

Uriel is on time. Barely. She shuts the door as the Metatron enters and takes her post just as Barachiel locks the inquiry once more. Uriel blinks hard. The cool air prickles the tear tracks on her face. She sinks into a low crouch, her back and head on the wall.

She is fortunate she recused herself from the board. Her thoughts range far from the Knowledge and miracles discussed. Aziraphale’s demon followed them. Aziraphale’s demon attacked? But was it an attack? Had it been, she would have been justified in defending herself. But if it had not...and there was her role in this whole mess. She has never...warned a demon before today. Has never seen a reason for it. But today she did. Uncertainty engulfs her. She has no way of knowing whether her actions were right. This entire situation is unprecedented; there are no charted waters or reasonable estimates.

Thankfully, it is another slow night, one which passes quickly and quietly. She catches the tail end treatise on Mystery of Kindness before they are dismissed for the day. She watches Jegudiel whisper something to Aziraphale, watches Sandalphon enter, and watches Aziraphale follow Gabriel for a quick update. 

“You okay?” Jegudiel asks Uriel. He settles beside her, entwines their fingers.

Sandalphon hovers a few feet behind him. 

She winces and pushes herself off the door, her breathing still harsh after her confrontation with the demon. 

“I hope I didn’t distract you,” she apologizes.

Jegudiel waves off her statement. “You’re fine. What happened, little sister?”

She takes a deep breath and shows them, lets the entire scene join their beings. She leans into Jegudiel as it ends with the dizzying cocktail of uncertainty and emotion. He tucks her head under his. Sandalphon leads down over her.

“You did your best,” he tells her.

Uriel shakes her head. “I don’t know if I believe that.”

Jegudiel nudges her. “Take my certainty, then. Angel of Judgement, after all. You used yours and did your best.”

Uriel snorts.

She is the Angel of Duty. Thanks to Aziraphale, the very basis of her existence stands upon cracking foundations. “I didn’t want to fire on him,” she finally whispers.

“He’s Aziraphale’s demon. I get that,” Jegudiel says, dismissing her budding argument.

“I drew anyway,” she says, “It was...I didn’t think about it once I saw his fingers.”

“Any of us would have done the same,” Sandalphon says.

Uriel shakes her head and wills him to understand. 

Jegudiel sighs and twines their fingers once more. “You didn’t fire on him, Uriel,” he says, “That’s the important thing. You followed orders and did your duty even when they clashed.”

Uriel stiffens and grabs his fingers in her hand. “I don’t know what I would have done if Michael hadn’t interrupted,” she admits.

“Then be grateful they did,” Sandalphon says, "Leave the rest to the Divine Plan."

Leave it be? Uriel doesn’t think she will be able to for a while if ever. But her brothers have buoyed her spirits and she sends them her thanks. She stands and stretches, her corporation protesting the long hours on the floor.

Jegudiel watches her a little sadly.

“You know,” he says slowly, as though gauging Uriel’s reactions, “Aziraphale doesn’t really have this. Not really.”

“And?” she says flatly. "He made his choice."

He shrugs, pretending at nonchalance. She knows better.

“Just emphasizing a connection for you, little sister.”

* * *

Uriel walks down to the main lobby to find Aziraphale impatiently shifting on his feet, his hands idly fidgeting. They exit together and walk a few blocks in their customary silence. Despite her frustrations and worries, the silence is tolerable and light.

“Is something the matter?” he asks as they reach the shop.

She enters and waits for the door to close before speaking. “I saw your demon last night, just outside headquarters.”

Aziraphale stares at her for a long moment.

“He followed us from Paul’s,” she continues, waiting for some kind of reaction. Aziraphale keeps secrets, not her. Not when she has a choice. “I confronted him after Jegudiel met us. I warned him off. I didn’t attack him.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widen. He glances down. “Oh good lord,” he says, shaking his head, “I told him to stay away-”

Uriel’s already beleaguered brain stutters to a halt at that information. “Excuse me? When?” she demands, pouring over her time on Earth. Aziraphale hasn’t so much been near those communication devices, how in the world- Almighty grant her patience, does he have an actual  _ connection _ to the demon?

“Maude is our mutual acquaintance,” he says gently, breaking her of her thoughts.

The red sherry bottles and the note tucked inside the basket, the handshake Aziraphale had given Maude that first afternoon when he doesn’t touch  _ anyone _ . Uriel tracks and links the events together and suddenly she is tired. Far too tired.

“You went behind my back and did that under my nose,” she says. She would be impressed if he wasn’t so infuriating. “Why do you keep doing that?”

He straightens. “You're the Watchman, you see everything,” he retorts.

“I wasn’t reading your correspondence, I haven’t looked over your shoulder every single second,” she snaps, “Why would I? That was human business, not celestial.” Or so she thought.

He jerks back slightly. They stand there on opposite sides of his damn compass, watching each other for a very long moment.

He breaks the silence with a soft chuff. “I do seem to keep making a mess of things,” he says mostly to himself.

Uriel tries to remain calm. She waits for him to continue.

He does just as she is about to give up. “I am unused to all of this,” he says by way of explanation, gesturing vaguely between them, “I suppose I made rather many assumptions as to how you would operate here. With me.”

She nods. She’s too tired for a fight. “I did as well. I never did explain myself. I’m used to others simply knowing how I operate or learning via our connections.”

He scrutinizes her. “Should we start again, then?”

* * *

Michael scowls as she and the other archangels are dismissed from the latest status update to upper management. He remains connected for several minutes longer, waits until those younger siblings finally disperse before he comes back to himself. Middle management he may be but they still cannot override his power without pooling theirs together and broadcasting it to the host. It's a petty, small victory, forcing the upper ranks to waste a few seconds reconnecting but they'll take it.

Raphael prods them and they join the other archangels.

“-that's fifteen since Aziraphale confessed, six in the last two months alone. How are we supposed to get anything done with their constant demands for updates?” Gabriel says with a groan. “Jegudiel, help me out here. There has to be some regulation this many meetings is violating.”

“They have the right, unfortunately,” Jegudiel says with a spiritual shrug. “Clause 7583 under subsection 2104 in the regs.”

“The frequency is increasing,” Barachiel notes, “And the Metatron has been spending quite a lot of time holed up up there. They've almost been late thrice.”

Selaphiel adds, “We're running the process, not the upper ranks. They're just other members of the host as far as the investigation goes. Maybe they're just curious like everyone else is?”

Raphael rolls their eyes. “Because upper management gets involved in disciplining one low rank angel all the time.”

“I think ze means the connection situation, Raphael,” Gabriel corrects.

“Because upper management gets involved in reintegrating low ranked angels all the time,” Raphael says, this side of mocking.

“Enough,” Michael says and turns to Barachiel, “The Metatron is holding the confidentiality of the investigation, correct?”

“We'd know it if they weren't,” she says darkly.

“Idle speculation and complaining will get us nowhere,” Michael says with finality, “We will simply have to adapt.”

Silently, they agree to leave it be for the moment.

“Oh, I've finalized my people,” Gabriel says, sending the group his list of angels for the new task force.

Uriel joins the discussion. “Mine as well.”

“Have you chosen the lead researcher?” Michael asks.

Uriel affirms with her choice. Michael raises an eyebrow at the name but offers no dissent. That complete, Gabriel, Barachiel, and Selaphiel drop out to fully brief the task force.

Uriel makes to leave but Michael stops her. “How are you and Aziraphale doing?”

“We have worked out an agreement.”

Michael doesn't push farther. “How goes it?”

Uriel takes a moment before answering. “Better.”

“Good. Let us know if you need help. Tell Aziraphale the same applies to him.”

“I will.”

“Tell him to come to me if he needs something,” Jegudiel asks, “I keep trying but I think he needs to hear it from multiple quarters.”

“My angels can keep confidence as well, should he want to talk to them,” Raphael says, their voice too gentle. “The same offer extends to you as well, Uriel.”

Uriel nods and disconnects. Jegudiel follows.

Michael turns to Raphael, a frown on their face.

“You’ve noticed it, too, then,” Michael says.

Raphael nods. “There’s curiosity and reintegration and then there’s this. They want to know what he knows.”

“Not just what he placed in the Archives but what he chose to hold back, what he is still hiding from us.”

Raphael runs a hand through their braid. “It’s those pieces that worry me. He put Knowledge he thought could start a rebellion into the Archives. I haven’t the imagination to figure out what would be bad enough to hold back.”

“You don’t think he will reintegrate fully.”

Raphael shrugs. “He will or he won’t. That’s up to him. We can’t stop trying to reach him. It’s up to us to show him we can take it. And that he can take it, too, whatever it is. Truth will out in the end.”

Michael smiles thinly. “All part of the Plan, I suppose.”

Angels were never promised easy, just that it would be worth it.

* * *

The weeks pass. Slowly, they learn one another. It feels patronizing at first, the way Aziraphale spells out every little thing he does or the way Uriel explains exactly what she will be doing and why. It's not quite habit, now, but method has passed from patronizing to simply awkward. It is working, though, and that is what counts. Their silences in the shop are calmer, they're both far less likely to snap at another. Uriel had honestly been amazed then humbled by how many seemingly simple assumptions they both had made and how difficult it has been to identify and smooth them over. The trust, if it can be called that, is tentative at best, but at least they each are making an effort.

The demon has been the other difficulty. He has been lurking in the blocks around the shop lately but he won't come closer so long as Uriel is there and any attempt Aziraphale has made to try to talk has ended with the demon vanishing for days. For her part, Uriel tries to ignore him. She doesn’t want a repeat of that evening. So when she catches a flash of red out of the corner of her, she is relieved that one of her angels chooses that moment to appear. Eleleth appears a shelf over, rubbing dust and grime off their corporation. 

“Sister,” she greets Eleleth with a smile.

“Archangel,” Eleleth says with a bob of her head, “I was hoping we could discuss a few things with the Principality, I have the documents-”

She pulls ethereal parchment, the kind which exists on several different dimensions at once and is scaled to the molecular level, out of the ether.

“We are on the material plane, researcher, humans could enter at any time,” Uriel corrects her.

“Oh, sorry, I’m sorry, I forgot myself,” she says and snaps, swapping the symbols and parchment for mundane paper and ink.

Uriel nods. “Thank you.”

“Anyway-”

“What is all this commotion?”

Aziraphale steps out of his office, looking a little put out as he adjusts his waistcoat.

Eleleth grins widely as she nods at Aziraphale. “Principality, it’s a pleasure to see you. I’m Eleleth. Oh, I’m sorry, was I supposed to alert you before I came?”

Aziraphale stares at the rapid onslaught of words. It's as though Eleleth is trying to translate everything she would normally send instantaneously over their connection with no regard for mortal things like air resistance and the speed of sound. 

“Slow down, little sister,” Uriel calmly commands, “We are not going anywhere.”

Eleleth breathes deeply and nods. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how we’re supposed to do this. I hear Archangel Gabriel is drafting an SOP on material plane interactions outside angelic contact but until then, um, I’m sorry if I caused offense for just dropping in.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows rise. Uriel reminds herself of their agreement. Aziraphale doesn’t know what goes on beyond what he is specifically told and Gabriel is notorious for just starting work without a word. “Gabriel is taking your discussion under advisement,” she explains, “Once he has finished, he plans to send it to you for correction and then to the rest of us to sign off on it.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says quietly.

He pauses, looks down consideringly. Uriel thinks it is finally dawning on him how seriously they take his condition and future.  

Eleleth’s gaze darts between them. Clearly unused to such silence, she says, “So, um, may I?”

Aziraphale gives her a small nod which she takes for approval. She pulls one of the sheets out of the stack and hands it to Aziraphale.

“I am part of a research team investigating the Creator phenomenon. It’s a collaboration between communications, music, and research mainly, but Kiliel from healing joined us once Archangel Raphael heard about it.”

“Indeed,” Aziraphale says, giving Uriel an appraising look.

Uriel notes his interest and his wariness. “We authorized it when we realized how much of human history needed to be reexamined in light of your Knowledge. Many are curious.”

Eleleth picks up the thread. “So, thing is, we don’t have eyes on every square inch of the Earth twenty-four seven, I mean, why would we divert resources there instead of towards our agents? Since we didn’t know, I mean, that humans could Create in the first place. Our group’s assignment is to figure out all the variables here, like are humans still Creators or did they lose that ability when they took the apple? If they can still Create, to what extent? Is the power diluted now that there are so many of them or-”

She pauses a second at Aziraphale’s increasingly amused look, determined and not at all self-conscious about it. Uriel assigned her for that reason. 

“Long story short,” Eleleth says with quirked lips, “We realized there are too many variables to suss through, even with dogs as a starting point. And as no one else in the host has experienced a human Creation, well, I thought that perhaps we could ask you some questions about it? If you have time, of course, Principality.”

“You thought?”

She nods. “I suggested. We just don’t know enough. And since you can’t, um..since the experience is beyond us, well, this is the next best way. So, please?”

Aziraphale’s fingers twitch slightly. “And what are you planning to do with this Knowledge, should you discover it?”

“We’re hoping to catch another Creation, if one exists, first, so the rest of the host knows what to look for. It may well be some did experience  _ something _ but didn’t have the context to understand what it was.”

“And so you came to me,” Aziraphale finishes. 

“That’s correct. Knowing what humans are capable of would have a great impact on celestial duties in the future but all we are doing for now is trying to establish a baseline.”

Aziraphale thinks on it for a long moment. “Very well. I will assist.”

Eleleth beams then cocks her head. “Oh, thank you very much. We really, really appreciate this. Should...the entire group be here? Only there are a hundred of us. They’d like to listen in, is that okay? And I can ask their questions?”

“That is quite all right,” Aziraphale says as he gestures towards the back of the shop, in and around his kitchen alcove rather than the office proper. “I’m afraid I don’t know how much help I will be though, you see…”

“Aziraphale,” Uriel says as Eleleth follows his direction.

Aziraphale turns back to her.

“I will be monitoring your physical location, which should remain in the shop unless we agree otherwise. I will not listen until you, she, or one of the others ask and I will inform you before I do so. One last thing. Please don't play games with her,” she requests, winces, then rephrases, “What I mean is, if you don't know or cannot say, please inform her. Don't send her off on some wild chase.”

“I won't,” he says solemnly. 

He heads into the back alcove. Uriel keeps watch but tunes them out in favor of seeing to her other duties. 

She tries not to let the hope that Aziraphale is genuine in his offer overcome her.

* * *

Rikbiel politely taps at Michael. They set their doubts aside and acknowledge him. Ribkiel spiritually steps out of parade rest into a more relaxed state, though after so many eons working with him they can sense the uncertainty and care just beyond their perceptions.

“What can I do for you?” she asks.

She senses him reach for his partner then take a deep breath. “Archangel, we wish to inform you that our charges are headed to London.”

She sends him a raised eyebrow. The pair is one of her best; informing her of their movements like this is strange.

“Principality Aziraphale trained me back when I started down here fifty-two years ago. With everything as it is,” he says with his characteristic understatement, “I would like to check in on him. See how he is while we all are there.”

“You are asking whether you can take time to see him?” she asks for clarification.

Dread builds in the several seconds between question and answer.

“I’m not asking permission, Archangel,” Ribkiel says quietly, carefully, his tone the equivalent of a respectful nod.

There it is. Dread drops into the deepest parts of her essence. Michael has been waiting for something like this for months. Even so, they are flummoxed as to how to deal with it, whether this is a battle they should fight or disengage from. 

He continues, “Kushiel is perfectly able and willing to handle things for a few hours. I haven’t had an opportunity like this in decades and he ought to see a friendly face. So I will be going to him. I'm just...keeping you up to date.”

“You have your orders.”

“Yes, Archangel, and we are still fulfilling them.” Ribkiel lays out their contingencies, their routes, known demonic activity and dangers, and every counter they’ve conceived. Michael could hardly do better themself. 

“Very well. See to it we do not regret your decision, both of you,” she orders mildly. Really, what else can they say to that level of effort? 

Ribkiel blinks and nods before he bows. Kushiel on their end of Ribkiel’s connection does the same. “Yes, Archangel, we promise no one will regret this.”

“We’d better not,” Michael says. They will brook no mistake and this pair knows it.

Michael pauses. “Your charges are already in London, aren’t they?”

Ribkiel blushes and ducks his head while Kushiel rolls their eyes at their partner. “They just landed.”

“To your assignment, then,” Michael dismisses.

So it begins.

* * *

“Your demon is following us again,” Uriel says as they head out of headquarters.

Aziraphale’s gaze darts about, a painful hope highlighting the crinkle of his eyes. “How far?”

“Two blocks to the west,” Uriel replies, “He’s not very subtle about it.”

She feels Aziraphale stretch his awareness slightly, hears his quiet little exhale when he finds the demon. “Uriel, I need to speak with him,” he says seriously.

She raises an eyebrow. “I’ve not stopped you.”

“No, I need to speak with him alone. Please.”

She shakes her head. “You know I can’t do that. I am supposed to monitor you and rectify any mistakes the instant they happen. I cannot do that if we are separated.”

Aziraphale’s look bears down on her. He pauses, considers then exhales. “Would you consider watching and listening to me from here then? It’s not so far as all that.”

“Why do you want this?”

“He is my responsibility,” Aziraphale says solemnly, centuries behind that conviction. “I need to warn him and only a face-to-face conversation alone will ensure he listens. Please.”

The weight of the moment sinks into Uriel. She knows this is a test, the first time Aziraphale has genuinely reached out to any of them for anything. And it’s for the demon. Of course it is.

What is she supposed to do?

She has no answers. She only has guesses and hopes.

“Ten minutes.”

“Thank you.”

“I will be listening. One wrong word-”

“Yes, understood,” he calls distractedly over the burgeoning traffic, then vanishes and reappears next to the demon. 

The demon startles as Aziraphale closes the gap between them.

“Angel, what the heaven-” he says, arms flailing every which way.

Aziraphale brings his hand up in front of himself. “Crowley, I need you-”

“Superiors visiting?” the demon says over Aziraphale, “Lay low, stay away from holy water? What the heaven is going on?” His voice vacillates between distraught and demanding.

“Crowley, I’m under audit,” Aziraphale hisses, his voice low so as to command the demon’s attention.

The demon stops short. “Audit?”

Aziraphale nods unhappily. “Yes, under audit. They’re going through my reports and my miracles. That is what is going on.”

The demon stares at him for a moment which Aziraphale seems to take as permission to continue. “Crowley, you must call off the robbery. It’s too dangerous, Barachiel has increased security, should you try, there’s no telling what the consequences will be-”

“Why would- audit, you mean they  _ know _ ?” the demon hisses, obvious panic lining every inch of his corporation.

“Crowley-”

“What do they know, Aziraphale?” he demands. 

“Everything,” Aziraphale says, defeated, then sighs. “Or enough of it, at least.”

The demon scowls and retreats a step with narrow eyes. “What the- you told them?”

“Crowley, listen-”

“You  _ told _ them?!?” The demon looks like all the betrayals of the world have been visited upon him in this one conversation.

“Anthony J. Crowley, listen to me for one second,” Aziraphale snaps.

The demon blinks. His mouth closes with an audible snap.

Aziraphale takes a breath and quickly continues, “I didn’t mean to.”

Uriel’s whole being freezes over. He knows she’s listening, what is he doing?

“I was requisitioning some holy water from our stores to bring you. Apparently I’d made a mistake on my paperwork,” he gives a weak chuckle. “First time for everything, I suppose. Barachiel started questioning me and before I knew it, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, and Sandalphon had me all tangled up and I was...I was tired, Crowley, of lying, of hiding, of everything. So I told them what I could.”

Uriel can see the demon is having trouble processing all the information Aziraphale just gave him. She never expected to sympathize with a demon. 

He flounders for a long moment. “You...you tried to do that?”

_ For me _ hangs in the air unspoken.

Aziraphale acknowledges it with a nod. “I tried.”

The demon’s cheeks redden as he fumbles for a second.

Quick as a whip, or a snake, he closes the distance between them again. He looks like he’s about to say something then thinks better of it.

He says instead, “Aziraphale, they know. I have to-”  Panic edges his tone once more. 

Aziraphale holds the demon’s gaze. The demon seemingly can’t look away. “They’re only interested in me, not you. They’ve ordered the host to treat you as any other demon. Not a word, not a hint Downstairs about any of this.”

The demon scoffs. “Oh, ordered, is it, you know what bollocks  _ orders _ are, that’s a real comf-”

“Crowley. I would never risk your life. Never.”

The demon stills, tense as a bowstring ready to fire. Aziraphale makes an aborted movement toward him. Uriel wonders what he would have done without her watching.

“Trust me, trust that I know what I am doing. Please.” 

Flashes of love crackle between the pair. Time, fondness, and deep abiding warmth punctuate each one. For the life of her, Uriel cannot pin their source to one or the other. Angels are beings of love, it is woven into their very essence. Can demons love? She doesn’t know but given Aziraphale's fondness for mysteries, he certainly could be. For the first time in centuries, she feels like a voyeur, watching as she is.

“Whatever you're planning, it's not gonna work,” the demon sounds utterly wrecked and exhausted. “You know them.”

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale admits, “but perhaps not. That is why they call it faith, darling. Trust me.”

Uriel appears beside them, her focus on her duty to Aziraphale and to leave this demon be unless he is interfering in celestial business. 

The demon yelps.

“Your ten minutes are up.” 

Aziraphale nods and heaves. He plasters a fake smile onto his face. “Please try to stay out of trouble, dear.”

The sentiment is old and teasing. The tone is grave and final.

The three of them stand there for a moment longer. The demon  starts to speak, then stops again. Something passes between him and Aziraphale, if the stricken look on her little brother’s face is anything to go by. She feels that love again, deep within her essence. This close, it crashes over her like a wave, stealing breath she suddenly needs. It pulls her under so quickly she reacts instinctively, anchoring herself first to Jegudiel and Sandalphon, then Gabriel. They hold her for the second she needs to right herself. A second too long- the experience fires through the host before they can pull it back. It’s akin to a fifty car pileup, emergency services rushing in to triage while stalled travelers gape and look on, invested despite their distance. 

Oh dear.

The host howls around her, demanding more information, more context, _more_. Barachiel shoves her way between them and even Michael intervenes. Uriel breathes once more. The sound of bells meets her ears and she risks a glance to her left. The demon has vanished. She and Aziraphale stand on the alleyway for several minutes longer. Aziraphale closes his eyes and steels himself. Uriel watches him fight to stillness before he looks at her once more. It’s a more honest version of that blank mask of his, one which isn’t pretending to be anything but. 

“Shall we?” he asks, his voice high.

Uriel’s eyes meet his then glance back to the empty space beside Aziraphale. The enormity of what Aziraphale did, of who this demon is to him, humbles her with its gravity. 

“You love him.”

Aziraphale looks torn between despair and offense. “I already admitted as such.”

“You did.”

She simply hadn't had the full context for Aziraphale's actions before now. He admitted his offenses to keep the host's focus on him and off the demon. Gabriel had thought him still the Guardian-

“You were protecting them,” she says slowly as she works it out, “the humans and your demon. That's why you put the Knowledge into the Archives. Not to protect us but to protect them  _ from _ us. You confessed so that you could control the flow of information and direct our focus.”

He looks at her, long and slow like a schoolmaster whose student finally found a correct answer.

“You are quite observant.” Is that fact, compliment, or damnation? Uriel knows not.

She does not want to know.

There is a long pause punctuated by Aziraphale's enigmatic smile.

“So what you said about not being forgiven…”

Aziraphale exhales, a self-deprecating laugh twists from his lips. “All true, I'm afraid. I would have deserved it, too, after everything.”

Uriel furrows her brows. Nothing in the garden, as far as she can tell, would warrant such a belief. But this is not Aziraphale disseminating or diverting her attention. Well, beyond the obvious shift away from the demon. He seems like the angel back on that first night, when pride and fondness at humanity's first great moment danced with abandon across his face. Only now disgust and fear etch deep lines in his corporation. She doesn't like it.

“I'm sorry,” she says and explains.

Aziraphale pales then reddens. “Ah, well,” he starts but stops.

“No one is angry at you for it,” she says softly.

Not yet, Uriel can't promise the future. But for now, their siblings want to understand, to bask in those flashes of light, to bellow at the injustice of it all, that an angel felt they had to keep such an exquisite feeling hidden. She says as much. If anything, Aziraphale reddens further.

Aziraphale leads them back to the shop where he can fuss after his books and assist the humans who find their way to the back room, unnervingly silent on the matter.

* * *

“Really, now, there is no need for all of this,” Aziraphale’s shade says. He is being pursued, cornered, Michael corrects, by two demons, neither of whom they recognizes. Aziraphale shifts towards an alleyway behind him, notes that it is a dead end, and sighs. Surreptitiously, he pushes his bag between him and the building. From the corner of Aziraphale's eye, Michael can see a multitude of papers and scrolls within it.

The demons sneer at him as they flank him, still a few feet away but their intention is clear. They tense, feel it bleed across the room.

“Oh you think that, do you?” the left one mocks. “What’ve they got a soft thing like you doing here?”

Aziraphale exhales as the other demon laughs. “Are you quite finished? I would like to be on my way, preferably without the two of you following.”

The demons snort. “Angel bolts out of headquarters like a bat outta hell and you want us to leave ya alone? Don’t make us laugh.”

“I warn you,” Aziraphale says, his voice hitching slightly. “Leave me be.”

They step closer and summon their weapons. One has a wicked looking scythe, the other a pair of sharpened daggers. Michael knows these tactics. A dagger to the heart to destroy the corporation, followed by an attack on the exposed essence. Michael has trained their earthbound agents to summon backup in cases like this.

Faster than Aziraphale’s memory can track, the demons close the gap. They lunge for him. There’s a loud rip and a low grunt as Aziraphale wrenches the daggers from the first demon. Bright red blood coats his hands as he flips the blades and blocks the next attack from the scythe.

Michael has no idea what expression Aziraphale wears but the two demons suddenly look a lot less confident. The bag’s shoulder straps tear completely, sending scroll after scroll and page after page onto the dirt and stone.

The demons glance down. 

At the papers. 

They shriek and stumble back.

Aziraphale roars at them. It’s not language as humans would recognize it, no syllables or consonants leave his lips. It’s not energy or essence which comprise angels and demons. It's no miracle. It’s something which does not exist in the world, save that Aziraphale has given it life, form, and purpose. It’s akin to every mathematical formula, every atomic vibration of a blazing nebula, and every fundamental force of a three dimensional universe all combined and made manifest in a world of infinite interlinking dimensions.

Aziraphale wields Knowledge in its purest form. His service record doesn't do his mastery justice.

The demons collapse, dead to the world. Their corporations are quite possibly truly dead, given the dual assault.

Aziraphale’s harsh breathing echoes through the memory. He leans against the building for a moment to catch his breath. A quick scan of his corporation reveals no injury beyond his ribboned hands. He sucks in a breath and heals them. 

He turns the daggers once, twice, and drops them. He clears his throat and slowly gathers the scattered scrolls. He mumbles under his breath about damages and Zaphkiel as he meticulously smooths bent corners and brushes dust from the pages. Michael can now see the celestial inscriptions and symbols which so pained the demons. Her eyebrows rise.

Those are the  _ Ark plans _ .

Raphael and Selaphiel catch her thoughts, confirm them. It sweeps through the rest of the board. 

Michael orders Gabriel to pause the memory.

“Principality Aziraphale,” she says, lacing her fingers atop her desk, “In what year did this moment occur?”

Aziraphale quivers in his seat but meets his gaze with a grimly determined look. “3104 BCE, Archangel. As I explained.”

Michael nods. “And the date?”

“The modern equivalent of February 28th.”

Michael nods once more, then leans forward. “Tell me, Principality, when did the Flood order go out?”

Aziraphale continues meeting her gaze, though his fingers twitch and his face slowly goes blank. “February 27th of 3104 BCE, Archangel.”

She nods once more. “And what was that order?”

“Humans born and living within Central Asia were to all be d-drowned by a great flood in the year 3004 BCE,” he stumbles again but holds his gaze like his very existence depends on it.

Michael nods once again. “That is correct. Please explain yourself. Now,” she orders.

“I requested a Change Order review on the 1st of March-”

“Which is irrelevant to my request,” Michael says, her voice low and threatening, imbued with the Almighty’s power.

Aziraphale drops his gaze for a split second then raises it once more. “I wanted to be prepared,” he says, “for when the change order was approved.”

“There was no change order review in progress when you took those plans.”

“There was not, but I assumed that once the review was complete, the Change Order would be implemented and given the timescale and scope involved, the sooner the humans could begin construction, the better. It took Noah and his family seventy-five years to build and the Change Order wasn't complete until 3027. They would have died had I waited,” he finishes in a fierce whisper.

“You were not authorized to take that information to the humans,” the Metatron snarls.

“No, but I did. And would do so again.”

“Aziraphale,” Raphael interjects over the Metatron's spluttering, “Why did you store this Knowledge in the Archives, knowing it could be called upon and you made to answer for it in the future?”

“It links back to the Revelation on orders,” he says, eyeing the Metatron with a dark look Michael can't identify, “but this is mostly context for the Knowledge which follows.”

Michael nods. Gabriel begins once more.

A loud laugh shoots through the memory.

Aziraphale's perspective whips around and locks eyes with his demon. The demon looks mostly as he did during that first meeting on the wall, save his curls are looser and his black demonic robe has been replaced by a human garment. 

“Friends of yours, I take it?” Aziraphale calls, his voice dry, as he shoves the scrolls into a hastily miracled bag.

The demon snorts and slinks between Aziraphale and his compatriots, his slit pupils never leaving Aziraphale’s face. “Hardly, angel. I was supposed to meet those two incompetents at the well outside of town-”

“What were you planning to do to the well?” Aziraphale hisses.

“-Anyway, they don’t show, I come looking, and here they are, booted out not half an hour after getting up here.” The demon laughs once more and kicks one of them for good measure. “That’s gotta be some kind of record.”

“Ah. Well. I was simply doing my duty as an angel of the Almighty.”

The demon rolls his eyes and snorts once more. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“I’m serious, this is great. I don’t have to meet them, I get to watch Beelzebub rip them a new one and remind them it innit a cakewalk up here.”

“If you say so,” Aziraphale replies primly, “I don’t need an account of hell’s politics.”

The demon raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Here I thought your lot were down here gathering intelligence.”

Aziraphale shifts the bag until it is on his back and stiffens. “My lot?”

A complicated tangle of tones encompass those two syllables. Michael identifies offense, incredulity, and buried underneath them all, fear and suspicion. The Metatron tenses further beside her. Barachiel and Raphael catch it, turn some small focus onto them.

The demon’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, had to dodge a pair about three months ago, lots of others here and there the last several decades.”

The silence stretches for several long seconds. 

“I’ve encountered quite a few demons the last four decades or so,” he says slowly, his focus fixated on the demon and his reactions. “I’d thought it simply bad timing on my part.”

The demon’s eyes widen. He blinks once then schools his face to a facsimile of disinterest.

“Really now,” he drawls, drawing out the last syllable. 

Aziraphale nods once. His head barely moves. Michael can feel the Metatron's disapproving scowl. Were they human, he would say that the Metatron was grinding their teeth or clenching their jaw.

“Right, well, I’m off, got a lot of...demon things to do, catch ya ‘round.”

Aziraphale exhales and admonishes, “Do leave that well alone. Civilization is hard enough to keep intact without your meddling.”

The demon grins and wiggles a hand at him. He almost answers when his gaze flicks downwards. 

“Hey, you missed-”

“Crawley-” Aziraphale panics as the demon crouches and retrieves a loose piece of parchment. 

He examines it for a second, a quick flip front and back. 

No screaming. No stumbling back. Nothing that demons  _ should _ do in the face of the Almighty’s name in celestial script. Michael is stunned into silence. They're not the only one.

Aziraphale shudders and snatches it from the demon’s hand. “That is not for you,” he berates the demon, but the phrase ends with a choked sound and a relieved sigh.

The demon raises both hands to chest height, his fingers spread. “Who’s it for then?” he asks.

Aziraphale tucks the parchment back with its brethren. “The humans,” he finally replies.

The demon cocks his head.

“What do humans need to build a boat that big for?”

Aziraphale sniffs. “What do you think,” he snaps. 

The demon backs a few feet. Aziraphale takes a deep breath and steadies himself. “They need it for sailing,” he finally says, the words slow and deliberate. Michael wonders how many times they have met between his Knowledge and his miracles, that the demon can practice such patience and Aziraphale take such effort.

“Bit of advice?” the demon asks quietly then waves at the bag, “All those ‘holy holies’ and ‘hosannas’ and ‘praise the Lord’ and all that. You know humans. Short attention span. Might be better to take them all out for them.”

“I will take that under advisement,” Aziraphale replies, his focus still on the demon, while he looks in every which way save Aziraphale’s.

“Right. Well-”

The memory cuts off. 

And the room erupts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience and support for this story. Real life kicked me the last two months but I am here and everything is sorted. Feel free to comment or theorize. I really do appreciate you all. I'm over on tumblr as angelsnhufflepuffs but I mostly just reblog cute art or fic. Thanks again!


End file.
